Brave Girls Wear Boots
by Beloved-Stranger
Summary: She leaned to one side, looking pointedly at Song, who was carefully putting out the green lanterns either side of the tea shop’s front doors. Zuko felt himself flush. “What you do feel,” Jin smiled again, “is complicated.” Zuko/Song
1. Prologue: Grave of the Fireflies

**Disclaimer:** Don't own AtLA. Woe. Woe is me.

**AN:** So. A Soko fic. Don't see many of those... Anyway, I like the idea of Soko, mostly because, hello, did it ever occur to anyone that the episode was about two lovers from opposite tribes...although metaphorically speaking the 'Love shining brightest in the dark' would be the whole firefly analogy. Etc.

Have fun!

* * *

**Prologue – Grave of the Fireflies**

They got as far as the out most lying farm – fields of koala-sheep, rice paddies nearer the river, paddocks with sleeping pig-cows – before the ostrich-horse began to flinch and shy, and Zuko heard the telltale rumble of komodo-rhinos.

Iroh whispered one word.

"Raiders."

Zuko turned, eyes widening. "They're heading for the village."

_Song…_

The Dragon of the West looked at his nephew. His nephew looked back at him.

Then the prince wrenched the reins around and drove their squalling mount back the way they came.

* * *

There was only a brief rumble in the distance, roaring down the road, before the sound rose up and consumed them as surely as the flames would. There was an abrupt crash from the direction of the front room, and Song realized they'd thrown a firebomb at the front of the house. Seconds later a second one exploded against the rear doors.

They were trapped, and the house was merrily going up in flames around them.

The raiders blew in moments later. Song felt her mother – whispering, feverish – shove her into her room and slam the sliding door shut…

She turned in time to hear a soft shriek of surprise, and watch the shadow of a blade throw up a delicate spray of blood across the other side of the slider.

The world seemed to slow for a moment. The edges of her vision went white.

Her mother's last words to her had been, breathlessly, "Hide, Song, quickly!"

Her limbs felt like lead, so when she was suddenly gripped by a pair of strong arms and lifting roughly into the ceiling space above her bed, it came as rather a surprise. She turned to the one that held her, who was helping her balance on the cedar beams, and gazed at him with huge half-blind eyes.

"Lee…?"

He pressed finger to his lips and nodded. She followed his gaze over her shoulder. His Uncle was fitting the ceiling panel back in place.

And not a moment too soon; below, the slider to her room was shredded and the raiders began to tear the place apart.

Faintly, she prayed they wouldn't think to pry up the floorboards, and see where she had hidden her treasure chest. Her grandmother's wedding veil was in there, and the story scrolls her father had given her, the little wooden animals he had fashioned for her when she was small.

Her mother's betrothal gifts – a gold seal on a chain and twenty-one bangles to match all set with jade and onyx – the most valuable things her family owned, and they might be taken by thugs or melted to ruin by the rising fire.

It was miracle the house wasn't coming down around them, now, but she vaguely supposed there were firebenders amongst the raiders, reining in the worst of the heat and flames.

"Move," Mushi was mouthing, and Lee began helping her to hop from beam to beam until they reached the southern terrace, where not two hours ago they had sat together and she had given up a fragment of her soul to him.

Accordingly, the scar on her leg itched, and she realized for the first time that she was crying; silent tears spilling unabated down her cheeks.

She began loosing time; the next thing she knew she was crouched in the woods bordering the property and Lee was gently shaking her shoulder, bright eyes locked with hers.

"Song," he whispered. "_Song_, listen to me. Is there something you need from your house? Something important, precious…?"

She nodded, coming back to herself. "There – there's a chest. Cherry wood, small, my name on the lid. It's under the floorboards, beside my armoire…"

He nodded once, short, sharp, and glided away into the trees.

She sat back, shaking, and felt Mushi's arm go around her shoulders.

Later, they would steal two more ostrich-horses from the raiders' supply train, and dash away into the night.

Later, she would learn they weren't Lee and Mushi at all, and that Zuko would spend weeks racked with guilt for stealing from her, and from the others that followed his first theft.

Later, she would chase after him on her own ostrich-horse when he stupidly went off alone, and be the single voice of joy in a village suddenly full of hate when he revealed himself.

Later, they would all journey to Ba Sing Se to sell tea, and to love, and to learn, and to rebuild, but now…

Now, she was a creature of stone and tears and aching grief, and it was all she could do before her legs gave way and she collapsed, sobbing fit to break herself in half, against the comforting shape of Iroh's shoulder.

* * *

**AN:** Read, review, lather, rinse, repeat.


	2. Ch1: The Teashop of Scars and Secrets

**Disclaimer:** I own nuthin' 'cept the new girl. Poor thing.

**AN:** So, thanks to Ryth76 for the review. This chapter's a bit of a shorty but I promise the length will pick up in the next one.

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**Chapter One – The Tea Shop of Scars and Secrets**

_They traveled for two days, almost non-stop, but she remembered almost none of it. Lee wouldn't let her ride by herself, and so she rode tandem with him – in front, because when she initially sat behind him, she forgot to hang on, and nearly fell._

"_You could've been killed!" he raged, shaking her shoulders._

"_Nephew," Mushi tried to interject._

_She simply gazed back at him, blank, uncomprehending, the grief raw and hovering just beneath the surface of her face._

_Lee gripped her shoulders a little tighter, then silently guided her back to his ostrich-horse._

"_Sit here," he muttered, and helped her up. "It'll be safer."_

_

* * *

  
_

Upon reflection, Zuko realized it was ridiculous to assume that two men and a pair of teenagers could run a tea shop, especially with the crowds Iroh pulled.

He and Song waited tables during the busiest hours while Pao cooked the snacks and Iroh made tea like it was going out of style. But it was during those quiet days, when Pao would be holed up in his office, and Song spent the afternoons back at their apartment napping or revising healers' lore, that Aneko would arrive to pick up the slack.

At first he didn't know much about her beyond that she lived somewhere in the lower-middle tier and had taken this job to escape a raucous home life, as well as improve upon her allowance. She was easy-going, the same age as him, and one of the few people who gave his scar a calm once over before simply discounting it as just another part of him. To her, he figured it was about as significant as his toes and elbows.

But he learnt some of the most important things about Aneko the day they both had off, when a pack of bullies caught him a back ally by a well, and decided to make him miserable.

A fist had just landed in his gut for the second time – and he was wondering how quickly he could take them all out without bending or his Dao or any kind of distraction – when a familiar voice piped up from the other end of the ally, by the well.

"Hey, bao-faces! Leave him alone!"

_Bao-faces?_ Zuko thought, looking up.

The bullies were looking too, and there was Aneko, her scowl melting into alarm as she suddenly realized how many there were, and that no one would hear them yelling this far from the square on a market morning.

He watched with rising horror as two of the bigger thugs broke off and began backing her further away from him, closer to the well. He struggled and yelled for her to run, for them to leave her alone, but to no avail. He looked on, helpless, restrained, as Aneko stepped back into the muddied earth around the well and slipped. He saw her sitting there, looking up at his attackers.

And then he saw her smile.

"What?" one of the bullies said – the leader – with a leer on his despicable mug. "Wanna play, little girl?"

She gave him a sideways look. "How do you feel about mud wrestling?"

Zuko couldn't see all of his face, but he could hear the faint surprise, the horrible lusty threat in the leader's voice.

"I like it quite well," came the pronouncement, and the second thug smiled.

"Oh, goodie," Aneko replied.

Zuko had a bad feeling about this.

And _wow_, was he ever right.

Aneko flung up her hands, launching handfuls of mud at the leader and his companion, and at the same moment there was wet roar. Following the motion of her arms, monstrous twin spirals of mud rose from the boggy ground around the well and bore down on the bullies with mucky and stenchful vengeance.

It was all the distraction he needed. While the two holding his stared open mouthed at their sodden friends, Zuko twisted in their loosened grips and landed a neat pair of roundhouse kicks that sent them sprawling. When they struggled to their feet, snarling, he dropped back into a defensive stance. He felt the rage that always swam beneath the surface swarm upward and settle upon his face, rearranging his features into a near blank countenance of cold anger.

Something must have shown in his eyes; some deadly thing that offered no gentleness or mercy. It had gone beyond being beaten by cowards in an alleyway – they had threatened someone they had thought could not fight back, and for Zuko, since he and Iroh's rescue of Song, that had become a sin unforgivable.

He watched the two exchange fever-eyed glances, and run wheezing back towards the marketplace.

_Cowards._

He turned in time to see the other two that Aneko had swamped (in about every sense of the word) trying in vain to slough the muck from their limbs and faces.

"Why you little…"

Aneko glowered up at them from the mud, raising her hands again. "Did you know you can drown in just an inch of water? Wanna find out how much mud it'll take for you smother?"

Apparently not, because the pair of them gave her eyes wide with fear before backing away and beating a hasty retreat in the same direction as their buddies. Not before however, attempting a parting shot –

"Slop-bending freak!"

– To which Aneko replied with a pair of mud balls to the backs of their heads.

Zuko watched them flee squalling and felt the barest of smiles worm at the corners of his mouth. He looked back to the well, where Aneko still sat, looking tired and grubby as she unsuccessfully attempted to bend and shake the mud from her sleeves. He sighed – _she helped you_ – and strode over to her. As his shadow fell across her face, she blinked up at him, eyes narrowed against the mid-morning sun, before offering a small smile as she took his outstretched hands.

"You're a bender," he stated as helped her stagger over to the well proper. "An earthbender."

Aneko flushed and looked away from him, trying to focus on pulling up water to rinse the worst muck from her clothes. Come to think of it, his weren't that fantastic either.

"Erm…" was all she said.

"I mean, I knew your dad was one. But you never said…"

He frowned at her. She was still pink.

"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked.

She fidgeted, squeezing murky water from her sleeves and the ends of her obi. He noticed she was biting her lip and appeared terribly anxious.

Zuko continued to look at her.

She took a deep breath.

"Look." She sat beside him on the lip of the well. "I'm…not really…I'm not really an earthbender."

Zuko stared at her with naked disbelief. "But, with the mud…"

"Exactly."

Another deep breath. A series of them in fact. She was trying to psych herself up for something, he realized.

"The mud. See, I'm…ugh…I'm not earthbender, in the conventional sense."

"…conventional?"

"Yeah."

There was a pause.

"Okay! Well, see, I'm just – this is really embarrassing for me – there must have been some Water Tribe in our family somewhere, because I really don't see how otherwise, but…" More deep breathing. "I'm a mudbender. I bend mud. And nothing else."

Zuko gazed at her blankly for a few minutes. Then his good eyebrow rose slowly but steadily to his hairline.

"Okay."

* * *

As it turned out, Aneko's bending was of little consequence and rather useless in any practical sense, so she'd never really trained as a bender. He father, an architect of modest renown, had passed on to her what he could of earthbending and she had made do with that and her own improvisation. It worked, for the most part, and helped avoid mishap.

It was also a secret, and thus Zuko was sworn to secrecy on the spot.

On some level, he realized that Aneko thought of her bending in the same terms he thought of his scar; something shameful, something not to linger on…something that ate holes in them in those inescapable quiet hours when one couldn't help but _think_.

And so it remained secret. The thing about secrets, though, is that they bind people.

Later that night, as he and Song sat wrapped in blankets, stargazing upon the apartment building's roof, he asked her, "What do you think of Aneko?"

Song smiled, her eyes still focused on the Two Bears constellation. Ursa Minor's front paw was especially bright that night.

"I like her," Song said. "She's kind, you know? Good to talk to." She turned to him, the smile content. "And it's nice to have a friend again, isn't it?"

Zuko gave her a hesitant smile back. "Yeah…yeah, it is."

So Zuko found himself a little more willing to talk to Aneko about important things, and things that weren't really important at all, but were fun to talk about anyway.

One day, on an afternoon when they had closed early for once and had the tea shop's tables to themselves, he sat drinking peppermint tea with Song and Aneko, smiling as the two girls laughed…

…and realized with a start, that for the first time in his life, he _did_ have friends.

A week and a half later, another secret rose that would bind them all even closer.

* * *

It happened one morning during opening, and began, as these things sometimes do, rather innocuously when Zuko noticed there was something off about Aneko's expression.

"Soo," he began. "Have a good sleep?"

_Smooth, Zuko, real smooth._

"Sure," she replied, voice deceptively light.

He watched warily as she doubled the apron strings around her waist before tying them.

"There was one thing, though."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I got a letter from one of my cousins in the country."

Something in the tone of her voice set the hairs on the backs of his arms and neck leaping to attention. When she looked up at him, her face was full of thunder.

"The letter came with this really interesting poster. A wanted poster, would you believe it?"

"A – A wanted poster, really? Wow, um."

He began frenetically stacking tea cups.

"A wanted poster," she confirmed stonily. "And _who_ do you think was featured on this wanted poster, _Zuko_?"

The world balanced upon a knife edge. Time slowed down. Zuko felt every nerve ending, every chi point in his body at once as a frisson of fear moved over his skin. As though moving under water, he turned to Aneko, a tea cup slipping from his rictused hand. It hit the floor and shattered upon the wooden tiles, the resulting five separate pieces coming away from each other like a flower opening.

Aneko's hazel eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

Paralytic with shock, he gave no resistance and she collared him and dragged him back through the kitchen and into the store room beyond. Suddenly, he was shoved into a set of shelves (they rocked ominously until he steadied them with both hands) and then found himself going cross-eyed looking at the set of chopsticks Aneko held under his nose. They shook with suppressed threat, dull light from the one small window glinting on their red lacquer.

"_You_," she hissed, "have got _some nerve_, coming into _this_ city – my _home_ – _lurking_ around, getting into people's _heads_ –!"

"Lurking around? People's heads – Aneko, what are you _talking_ about?"

"I told you – about my bending – my _secret_ – and you're – _you're_ –!" She faltered for a moment before snapping, "_Jet was right_!"

He blanched at the mention of his former friend-cum-enemy, and then took a step toward her, frowning – though some of the confusion was clearing. "One secret for another, is that it? Aneko, people knowing who I am could get me and Uncle _killed_!"

"And people knowing about my bending _couldn't_?!"

He stared blankly at her. "…what?"

"They used to drown kids like me, Zuko. Inbetweeners. Kids born caught in the middle of two elements. We were bad luck, an affront to nature. Only the Avatar could possess control over all Four."

Zuko's face hardened and he went to say...

She glowered at him.

"And don't give me that _'this never would've happened at home, we're out to spread civilization'_ spiel. My grandfather was historian. We had travelers' diaries dating back before the Hundred Year War."

The look on her face made his stomach drop. _Oh, no…_

"They used to burn inbetweeners in the Fire Nation. One of my great-great-uncles watched it happen one day, at a festival. People cheered.

"I read that entry when I was eight."

Zuko felt sick. He noticed she was shaking. She didn't flinch or turn away when he put his hands on her shoulders, just gazed at him dully.

"Hey," he murmured. "You're one of my best friends. One of my _first_ friends. I won't let that happen to you."

Her eyes went glassy with tears, and she sniffed.

"You can't go promising these things willy-nilly, Zuko; some day someone will catch you with you pants down if you do."

He grinned.

"I'll make sure to wear clean underwear."

She let loose a single surprised laugh and roughly wiped at her eyes. "Wow, you made a joke."

"Must be the first sign of the apocalypse."

"The world is ending," she agreed. "Does Song know?"

"…Yeah."

Aneko looked curious, but wary. "When?" she asked simply.

"Two days after we rescued her from the raiders. I used my bending to light our camp fire; I didn't even _think_…and she just looked at me, then at the fire, then at Uncle, then back at the fire. She was still in shock then, about her mother. I think when she started to get over her grief; she got over our secret, too."

He looked at her sharply, gazed gilded with subterranean fire.

"What are you going to do with what you know, Aneko?"

She gave him a searing glare.

"You have to ask? I'm not going to tattle on you or Mush – General Iroh. I'm a big girl, Zuko; big enough to know that the War hasn't _just_ hurt people in _my_ country – the Fire Nation has children too and you're still one of 'em. I'm a strong believer in taking care of children. So, I burnt the poster down to nothing when I figured it out. I'm angrier that you didn't trust me enough to tell me more than anything else."

He gave her a small, hesitant smile.

"So, we're okay?"

He wasn't expecting the hug, but it wasn't unwelcome.

"We're okay."

* * *

**AN2:** See you next chapter, _Those Girls from Ba Sing Se_. In the meantime, review like you mean it…and tell me how you feel about the new girl.


	3. Ch2: Those Girls From Ba Sing Se

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but the healer. Pity him.

**AN:** Thanks you those who reviewed, you munchkins rock my munchy world. With this chapter I tried to throw in a few of the untold tales of Ba Sing Se; Aneko, Jin and Song. See what you think…

* * *

**Chapter Two – Those Girls from Ba Sing Se**

_When he put the bag in front of her, she didn't know what to say. It was open, and spilling from it were the silken hems and sleeves of a noblewoman's clothes. Very slowly, she drew the first item from the bag and spread it cautiously before her. It was beautiful, as she had expected; the silk was dense and dyed a rich amber to emulate gold, embroidered with a pretty dragonfly and cattail design, while the buttons were elegantly made knots of black cord. She recognized the pattern; northern loveknots._

_He couldn't have possibly realized the significance._

_Song looked up at him, confusion plain on her face._

"_Where did you get these? I thought…I thought we didn't have any money."_

_For some reason, he wouldn't meet her eyes._

"_It doesn't matter where I got them. You'll need clothes; I wasn't able to save anything from the fire – from your house."_

_She pressed her lips together, the delicate gown crushing as her hands went white-knuckled around it. It didn't help, and the tears still found their way down her cheeks._

"_Song…"_

"_It's okay. I'm okay."_

_His own fists clenched, and she saw the thwarted rage tense the line of his jaw, narrow the uneven shapes of his eyes. At first, she thought he was angry with her for some reason she could not fathom._

_Come sunrise, he was gone, and she was left to face Iroh over embers of the fire._

"_Why?" she asked softly. "Was it something I –?"_

"_No," he interrupted gently. "No you must never think that, my dear." The old General sighed. "He has left because he is frustrated. He has lost the power to affect change the way he used to." He leveled those wise, saffron eyes at her. "And I believe he is so angry because he now has someone he wishes to affect change for."_

_She hung her head, cheeks flushing. After a moment she murmured, "We'll have to go after him."_

_Iroh smiled and nodded. "Oh, I never intended otherwise."_

_

* * *

_

The Tale of Aneko…

"So," Aneko said, bumping her hip against his as she brought her empty tray back behind the counter. "Jin, huh?"

Zuko flushed.

She turned to Iroh, "He finally figured it out?"

"No," was the response. "He thought she was a spy."

Aneko gave Zuko a flat, disbelieving look. "Seriously?"

The boy flushed harder. "She was always hanging around _looking_ at me!" he defended.

"Which, in the _normal_ world, means someone likes you."

Sullen muttering followed. Aneko smiled, face full of affection and slung an arm around his shoulders.

"You'll be fine," she told him.

He gave her one of those endearingly hesitant smiles. "Really, you think so?"

"Sure, and if you do screw up, we'll totally be here to pick up the pieces!"

---A---

The house was, as per usual, full of children.

When her mother had opened their home to the orphans of the world, things had instantly become markedly rowdier, and today was no exception. Aneko had finished her shift early when the foot traffic began to flag, and so headed home to see what the latest uproar would be about. The kids didn't disappoint.

"The Avatar built a ZOO!"

"Can we go?"

"Please, please, please, please, please, please, _please_?"

That about covered it.

And so, her tips fresh and jingling in her pocket, she took her allotted pack of ragamuffins and set out for the City wall, heading back through the lower tier with one littlie on her hip and six others trailing in a neat crocodile behind her. They all held hands, motivated to stick together and behave by the prospect of treats and animal encounters. Aneko chattered to the baby in her arms and when they arrived, spent most of the time answering questions about why hog-monkeys beat their chests, or why koi-carp spat, or what was making those squeaking noises coming from the rabberoo's pouch.

The later was answered when the rabberoo's own brood popped their fuzzy heads out to take in the world. The children's squeals of delight were deafening.

"'Neko," one small charge said, as the all sat down in the small zoo plaza to have peach juice and red bean ice cream, "who's the boy with the scar?"

Aneko blinked at the little girl, and then at the five other pairs of wide eyes fixed on her. "You all want to know?"

They nodded.

"Why?"

"He's nice," the same small girl, Tia, piped up. Then she blushed. "I couldn't reach a flower on the tree and he got it for me."

"Yeah!" added a little boy, Ryo. "He came home with you. You were all covered in stinky mud."

Aneko nodded. "His name is Lee; I work with him and his uncle in the tea shop."

"Ohhhhh," came the intrigued response.

"But why were you covered in mud?" interjected Ryo.

Aneko thought about it. How to spin it into something she could tell them that wouldn't give away her bending…? Ahh, of course.

"Well, you see, I was at the market when I heard a kerfuffle coming from an alley way by a well. And what do you think I saw? Four awful boys trying to beat up Lee! So I rushed over and said, _Hey, bao-faces! Leave him alone!_"

The children all laughed.

"But of course they didn't," Aneko continued smiling. "Two of them came towards me, looming like spirit monsters…"

"Oooooh…"

"And I was so scared I slipped in the mud…"

"Oh no!" they all gasped.

"But, I was in luck, for there was a mighty yell, and Lee broke away from his captors to save me!"

"Yaaaaay!" cheered the children.

"However, there were more of them than there were of us, so we had to fight hard and bravely, all slipping and sliding about by the well…"

"And that's how you got covered in mud!" cried Ryo.

"Exactly. And that, boys and girls, is the story of the Battle of the Well."

Little did she know, this tale would go down in children's history for years to come.

* * *

The Tale of Jin…

He was odd and sweet (after a fashion) and very, very confused. Having dinner with him wasn't really any hardship, but she wanted so badly to laugh at his awkward attempts at conversation

"You have… quite an appetite for a girl."

It was a wonder she didn't snort noodles out her nose. Poor thing, he really had no idea how to talk to girls…how on earth did he get on with the ones working at the tea shop?

As the night progressed, Jin smiled at the rather obvious fib of being a juggler, Lee got pottery and sweet chili oil in his hair, and the both of them muddled through the oddest date of their lives.

"So, your friends at the tea shop, what are they like?"

He blinked at her. "Song and Aneko?"

"Yeah, Aneko's the taller one right? And Song wears the peach hanbok?"

"Uh, yeah…" He looked a little suspicious at first, but gamely went on; apparently deciding her interest was innocent enough. "Song came with us to the City. She cured my Uncle when he tried to make White Jade into tea…"

Jin giggled. Lee smiled and continued.

"She invited us over for dinner. Uncle couldn't get there fast enough; her mother made this really amazing roast duck…" He trailed off, frowning and looking down.

"Lee?"

"She – Song's traveling with us, because her mother was killed in a raid that night. We had just left when we heard them in the distance. We ran back, but we were only in time to save Song. She had nowhere else to go."

"Oh, Lee," she whispered, tentatively reaching out to put the tips of her fingers against the back of his hand. He looked at her then. "That's awful."

He nodded absently. "Yeah…"

A soft, almost forlorn expression came over his face. His eyes were faraway, as though remembering something dear to him.

"Hey, I know it's not much, but I know a place that might cheer you up. It's my favourite place in this city."

And of course, the lanterns weren't lit. Yet he asked her to close her eyes and when she opened them…the square was filled with gold and amber, each lantern filled with a tiny brilliant light.

"How did you…?"

He just smiled. She felt a surge of triumph, even as he stepped away from her.

"It's complicated –"

_Of course it is._

"I have to go."

And off he went.

Jin heaved a sigh and sat on the edge of the fountain. It was complicated, because even if he didn't know it, he had feelings for the girl he talked about, the orphan, Song. Jin didn't begrudge him this; this wasn't really a date and she wasn't just a girl. However, it bore reporting.

She let out a soft whistle, and from a nearby rooftop a charcoal-grey shape drifted down. The cat-owl perched lightly beside her, waiting with ingrained patience as she pulled a small piece of paper and a charcoal pen from her pocket and wrote a brief missive. With practiced movements, she rolled the note and slipped it into the tiny tube attached to the creature's leg.

"Home you go," she told it, carrying it the edge of the square and watching as it launched itself from her wrist. The white lotus dyed into the underside of its left wing caught the light for a moment as it swooped away.

Jin smiled, and slowly began the walk home.

* * *

The Tale of Song…

"Excuse me; I was wondering if you could help me?"

The woman behind the desk looked supremely bored. Song noted the name plate beside her blotter: Ling-Ling. "Did you now?" she drawled. "Why's that?"

"Well, this is the Public Listings Office isn't it…?"

Ling-Ling sighed. "Sure. What is it you want, honey?"

"I'm an apprentice healer, and I need –"

"You need a master to finish you training with, right?"

"Yes, please."

The Listing Officer's expression turned interrogative. "What happed to the last one?" She sounded almost accusing.

Song looked away, suddenly feeling angry and sad. "My village was burnt to the ground, a second time. I only just escaped, so my previous master – she's probably dead."

Ling-Ling looked contrite at that. "Oh. Sorry. Um, look, here's a list of healers in the area. There are addresses for each. You'll have to do the leg work, but the ones near the top are most likely to accept apprentices – though don't hold your breath. With the influx of people recently, most positions are full."

Song took the list, thanked her, and started walking. It was going to be a long day.

---S---

Song gazed at the blue door before her.

It was mid-afternoon; she had spent the better part of the day trudging about in the dry heat, going from clinic to clinic, healer to healer, only to be denied each time. Ling-Ling was right; the City was brimming with people right now, and each healer had at least two apprentices already. One ambitious man had taken on three, which Song had privately thought quite foolish. She doubted if she would have chosen to train with him even if he _had_ had room for her.

This place was the last on the list. A relatively small clinic, run by one healer, a man named Shan. There was a small black star printed next to his name. When the previous healer she had been to had seen it, she had shaken her head.

"Don't bother, lovey, just go home. That one won't take anybody."

But she couldn't just go home. She had loved working with Iroh, Zuko and Aneko in the tea shop, but she was a healer at heart and she wasn't going to give up on her education.

Stifling her nerves, she reached up and knocked on the blue door.

Whoever she was expecting to see on the other side, he wasn't it.

Shan was a tall man, but made to look shorter by his limping left leg. When he reached up to still the door chime, she saw that two fingers were missing from his right hand. His weathered skin was dusky, a warm brown that along with his near auburn hair and long face marked him as Water Tribe. His eyes were blue, obviously, but they were darker than the usual startling hue Song had seen in a traveler that have once passed through her village. He frowned at her, blinking in the sunlight, and his gaze was ancient.

"Can I help you?"

"Um, Master Shan?"

"That's me."

"My name is Song; I'm an apprentice and I –"

Thunder filled his face. "No," he said, and she barely managed to slip through the door before he slammed it and turned away.

Inside, it looked a lot like any other hospital or clinic. There was a small waiting area with a few benches and beyond that the patient rooms, shielded from view by two painted screens. Both screens were black paper with bright arctic designs on them in blue and white paint – skua-hawks rising over a glacier on the left, narwhals dancing beneath the ice on the right.

Song watched as Shan disappeared between them and trotted to keep up.

"Sir…"

"Still here?" He paused and looked over his shoulder at her, dark eyes narrowing. "Don't you _listen_? I said, 'no'. I don't take apprentices."

"I know," she blurted, then flushed.

Shan frowned at her, deepening an already ingrained groove between his brows. She squirmed, but prepared to state her case.

"Sir…Master Shan, I admit you were not my first choice to finish my apprenticeship with –" He snorted. "– but, you're all I've got right now. It's a terrible reason to choose someone to help one finish her education…but, again, this is _my education_. My mother helped me get my first apprenticeship and I _refuse_…"

Tears threatened, wetted her eyes, but she fought them down…

"I refuse to fail her by simply _giving up_ when there is _something_ I can do, when I've found someone who can teach me." She shook her head. "We didn't give up when they took Dad and burnt the farm and I won't give up just because they burnt down my house again and killed –"

She cut herself off and looked fixedly down at her feet. There was an almost full minute of tense silence before she heard the master healer sigh.

"Look at me, girl," he said softly.

Song swallowed and forced herself to look up. That terribly ancient gaze drank in her face, and she could almost see some decision being reached behind his dark blue eyes. She wondered a little desperately what he was thinking.

"Where is your mother, Song?"

Her voice was very faint. "The raiders killed her, almost two months ago. Two friends saved me. I live with them now."

He nodded. "We are all refugees from something these days, it seems." He sighed again, weary. "Come with me."

Tearstained, but hopeful, Song followed him through the patient rooms to another blue door. Beyond it was a flight of stairs that lead to a lobby with a third blue door and another flight of stairs. She thought the door might lead to his apartment over the clinic. She continued to follow him up the second flight of stairs. These seemed to end at the ceiling, but Shan pulled a brass key from his sleeve and slide it into a small white-enameled keyhole, shaped like a lotus, and pushed. Two panels of the ceiling flipped outward on unseen hinges and hot sunlight fell onto their faces. Then a breeze tousled her hair, and she realized they were climbing out onto the roof.

Up here, the air felt clearer, cooler. The roof was mostly flat topped and at the centre of it was a small rotunda. She trotted after Shan, his limping stride still longer than hers, and gazed at what lay beneath the rotunda's eaves.

It was a pond, its sides built from stone and mortar like a well but oval shaped. There were white lotuses floating over its still waters, and below them she could make out two little koi fish, one black, one white. At the western end, closest to the roof entrance, was a bench curved to follow the shape of the pond. At the eastern end was a shrine, incense that smelt of lavender and sea salt burning in a censer, the smoking sticks framing a picture on waterproofed canvas.

The girl depicted was Water Tribe; the only points of colour in an otherwise monochrome canvas were her brilliant blue eyes, and despite those eyes and being several years younger than him, she bore a striking resemblance to Shan. Her name was written in bold characters down the side of the picture: Shaya.

"My sister," Shan said, taking a seat at the bench. Song carefully sat beside him. "She died in a white out when I was sixteen." He held up his right hand. "That was when I lost my fingers, and when the frostbite made a club of my foot. I left after that. Went south and ended up here."

He turned from the image of his dead sister, and looked at Song. "I understand loss, Song. But damaged doctors are no good to anyone. They only get distracted and spread the damage around." His eyes gentled. "You need to heal yourself, inside and out, before you can begin to heal others."

Song looked away, closing her eyes. After a moment, she nodded, got to her feet, bowed to him and began to walk away…

"Song?"

She looked back at him. He had not turned from the shrine.

"I open the clinic at the half-eight candle-mark in the morning. I'll expect to see you here at eight."

Song closed her eyes again, a smile filling her up like fine hot wine, and finally let the tears fall.

* * *

**AN2:** Who hearts the Shan? Go on, admit it, he's awesomesauce. Anyway, see you next chapter, or should I say, interlude; _Run, Kitten, Run_.


	4. Int1: Run, Kitten, Run

**AN:** 'Hui-ying' is pronounced "hway ying." And to answer one particular review, yes, Aneko does know Jet - how, of course, will be revealed...in the second interlude.

* * *

**Interlude One – Run, Kitten, Run**

_She arrived just in time to hear him say it._

"_My name is Zuko. Son of Ursa and Fire Lord Ozai." He sheathed his Dao. "Prince of the Fire Nation and heir to the throne."_

_She hardly heard what they called afterwards. Their voices were merely blurs of sound upon the heated air: "…liar…outcast…father burned…disowned…"_

_Song did not care._

_Zuko took the dagger back, approached the boy. A woman slipped forward, between the prince and the child. "Not a step closer."_

_Song could barely breathe as she watched Zuko kneel and hold out the dagger, that precious object, saying, "It's yours. You should have it."_

_She wanted so much for him to have a happy ending in all this, some crumb of light for him to keep burning…_

"_No, I hate you."_

_That did it. She plunged awkwardly from her mount's back, calling, "Zuko!"_

_He looked up at her, face full of disbelief, even as she rushed forward and cannoned into him, arms going tight around his neck and shoulders. It took a few seconds, but he hesitantly hugged her back. "Song?"_

"_Please don't leave again," she whispered. She felt he villagers' shock and scandal upon her – the weight of their eyes._

_His arms tightened around her. "I won't. I promise."_

_As they rode away, the sun setting before them, she sat behind him, arms about his waist. Her own ostrich-horse walked beside them, its reins tied to their saddle._

_Song looked back. Zuko did not._

_

* * *

_

The last train was coming in to Ba Sing Se.

Shivering, Uri pulled the cloak closer about her – she still wasn't used to Earth Kingdom weather – and watched the night sky peel away outside the train carriage's windows. She found the familiar constellations; the Snow Dogs, the Skua-Hawk and the Running Rabbit with its single red eye. This far north she could also make out the Great Northern Dragon; a coiling line of brilliant blue and silver arcing from north-east to south-west, though it dimmed the further they got into the City, the many street lanterns drowning out the light of the stars.

She turned in her seat, folding her legs beneath her, and reached out to open the pack beside her.

"Dee-Dee?"

There was a soft, rasping meow from the mouth of the pack, and two jewel-bright yellow eyes peered out at her. She smiled and hauled the pygmy puma into her lap.

"Look at the stars," she told him, pointing, and that wonderful little beast followed the line of her hand. "Take a good look, pusscat. I don't know if we'll ever get to see 'em this bright again."

Dee-Dee flicked his mismatched ears; red back, black forward. His white coat caught the starlight, making it look almost blue.

The last train into Ba Sing Se began to slow, and Uri gathered her things. They would be getting off in the lower tier – she didn't have much money and it would be easier to blend in there, ragged as she was. The wind rushed her as she stepped down from the platform, and she shivered again, glad of Dee-Dee, who lay curled about her neck and shoulders.

The pair began walking, but as neither thought to look up, they didn't spot the lone figure pacing them across the rooftops; black-clad, nimble, half-shrouded in a charcoal-grey cloak.

Had they looked up, they might have seen the white oval of the figure's blank Noh mask, hovering in the night air, the face of a lost soul in a sea of dark. The mask bore only the minor markings of delicately painted eyebrows; each a single swift brushstroke, while the hollow eyes were lined with black, kohled like those of a noblewoman. Upon its forehead were two calligraphed characters, meaning simply: _fox_.

Perhaps most unnerving was that the mask had no lips, not even the slightest suggestion of a mouth. And yet…

"Run," whispered a voice behind the ghostly face. "Run…"

* * *

Jin had arrived at the market early that morning, and begun work in the vegetable shop almost immediately. The weather was good – warm, but with a light breeze to keep the fruit from ripening too far – and so they were expecting heavy foot traffic through the plaza.

Settling, she gazed out at the rest of the market, at the dust and worn pavers, at the other stallholders, the children zigzagging underfoot, smelt the sunlight and the familiar bouquet of new fruit and fresh-rinsed vegetables.

And then her eyes caught on one figure, shoulders slumped, wandering toward her family's stall.

_Well, now…_

"Hi," she called. "Hungry? We've got a special on lychee nuts today."

The girl looked up. Jin saw the flap of her satchel lift and a mottled tri-colour head pop out; a pygmy puma with odd patterning instead of the usual solid black. She approached cautiously, waiting until she was sheltered by the stall to pull out her purse – smart girl, there would be pickpockets out in force today.

Having bought a generous handful of nuts, the girls stood snacking and doing as Jin had done; taking in the view. Jin took the opportunity to size her up.

She was short and small featured – some might have pegged her at about thirteen, but Jin's practiced eye saw her own maturity reflected back at her and mentally added another two years.

She took in the scraggly black hair, cropped to just above the girl's round shoulders save for clusters of uneven bangs either side of her pale face; the well traveled rust-coloured tunic and brown three-quarter trousers with sandals, where most people wore pantaloons and closed toed-shoes. She wore sleeved cloak too, which was odd in this warm weather.

And yet despite her oblivious destitution, there were battered gold cuffs at her wrists and throat, and an old ornate fan hanging from a sheath at her belt.

Also…

Amber, especially amber that dark, wasn't an oddity in certain regions of the Earth Kingdom. But those regions were well west of here, on the coast. And Jin had never ever seen or heard of someone with dark amber eyes, _flecked with gold_.

_You're not from here, girlie,_ she thought. _And if someone looks too closely they'll figure you out just like I have._

_

* * *

_

"Are you sure about this?"

The girl, Uri, was giving her a faintly uncertain look. Only faintly, mind you, but still.

Jin nodded reassuringly. "Its no big deal," she told her new friend. "If you're going to stay in Ba Sing Se, even for a little while, you'll need a job. Pao's been making noises about needing someone in the tea shop's kitchen for a week or so now – I should know, I'm in there often enough."

Uri nodded and gave her a grateful look. "Well, thanks. It's nice of you to go out on a limb for me when we only just met this morning."

Jin waved her off, but let her curiosity show on her face. "Its okay, really, but you can pay me back by letting me know who I'm going out on a limb for. What's your story?" She smiled easily. "everyone in this city's got one."

Uri's button nose wrinkled the way a puma's did when it smelt something it didn't like.

"That bad?"

"Pretty much."

"Tell?"

Uri sighed. "I ran away, basically. My dad's a tyrant. Mom's not around much. I wanted to get out, so I did."

Jin raised her eyebrows but nodded. "Sounds reasonable enough – oh, here we are."

And they were. Like the market, Pao's tea shop was doing a roaring trade, but they had arrived during one of the between-meal lulls and so were able to pick one of the nicer tables closer to the counter.

And there was Lee rooted to the spot at the sight of her, eyes already darting nervously.

_Probably looking for an exit,_ Jin thought dryly. _Poor schmuck._

She left Uri at their table, strode purposely up to the counter and met his yellow eyes squarely. He was big bundle of nerves, and from the looks of things probably expected a slap or a crying jag after last week's debacle – and if she had been any other girl, Jin might have obliged. However, that not being the case…

"Lee –"

"Jin – I – that night – I'm really sorry – I –"

"I need to speak to your boss, actually."

He blinked at her. "Wha…"

"Ya know what?" a new voice piped up from behind the stricken boy. "Why don't _you_ go find the boss man, and _I'll_ wait with Jin."

It was Aneko (closely followed by Song) who grabbed his shoulders and turned him with swift shove towards the back rooms. He stumbled off, still blinking at the three girls.

Aneko rolled her eyes. "Honestly." To Song and Jin she said, "Go sit, I'll get tea for you guys."

Song shifted restlessly. Jin noted the small parcel and canister she was carrying. "Aneko, I really should be getting back –"

"The hell you are. Shan gave you a whole hour and if I have you nail you to a chair you will spend at least some of that hour off your feet. Now go, sit, shoo!"

She flapped at them with her serving tray. Song gave her friend a small frown but allowed herself to be herded over to the table where Uri sat with the pygmy puma in her lap. She looked up at the two girls and offered a slightly nervous smile.

"Uh, hi, I'm Uri."

"I'm Song," Song said, offering a habitually reassuring smile as she sat.

Jin took the seat at right angles to both, and an awkward silence immediately fell. Jin felt she had a pretty good idea why and sure enough…

"So," Song said, fidgeting with the sleeve of her hanbok, "how – how did you're date go with…Lee?"

_Oh hell…_

"Oh, well, you know…" She slumped. "It sucked."

Song gave her a hesitant look, as though she didn't know whether to commiserate or…or be _quietly smug_. Well, it seemed not only did Lee harbour secret feelings for her, but _she_ harboured something similar for _him_. And evidently, both were rather oblivious to the fact.

What a perfect pickle.

"That's…that's awful," the healer's apprentice told her tentatively. "What went wrong?"

Right then and there, Jin decided to be helpful. "_Please_," she sighed. "It's a poor girl who can't tell that the guy she having dinner with has a major crush on someone else."

"Oh?" Song's fidgeting got a little more intense. "Did he, um, give any indication of who it might be?"

Jin pretended to look thoughtful. "Well, he got this soppy look on his face when he was talking about one the girls he works with." She snapped her fingers and Song jumped. "Didn't you used to work here?"

"I – I – I –"

"Who's Lee?" Uri chose that moment to interject.

"Waiter who works here," Jin explained. "Good-looking, a little grouchy, got a scar shaped like a comet just here." She indicated the approximate size of Lee's scar on her own face.

Uri was beginning to look nervous. "A scar? What from?"

"Firebenders," Song said faintly.

Dee-Dee chose that moment to let out a squall and try to climb out of Uri's lap. "Oh, no, sorry, Dees," she cried, stroking the puma's back apologetically. "Was I holding too tight?"

Dee-Dee hissed, but stopped struggling.

"I come bearing peppermint and jasmine." Aneko arrived at the table and began setting out teacups with a particularly pretty blue willow pattern along with two matching pots of tea, steam rising in pleasant spirals from their spouts. "So, I miss anything crucial, gossip-wise?"

Ominous silence.

Aneko's eyebrows migrated north up her forehead. "Oookay…"

It was at that point that Lee showed up. "I couldn't find Pao, so I brought –"

"Uncle," Song said looking up at the old man and smiling.

"Mr. Mushi," Jin chimed in.

"Bossman," Aneko added cheerfully.

"Meep," went Uri, whose eyes were now huge in her face as she gazed at the elderly tea maker and the boy beside him.

"Girls," Mushi greeted them, before turning his gaze on the newcomer. "And you must be the applicant. I am Mushi, the head tea maker."

"I – I – I'm U-Uri."

Lee's eyes had narrowed (further). "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

The girl managed a nervous laugh. "Ha…ha-ha, I don't think so…"

"Time is marching on, children," Mushi announced. "We have tea to make, tea to serve and a new member of our tea-shop family to initiate." (Lee's palm hit his forehead) "Uri, my dear, should you be hired here, you'll be working in the kitchen. Please follow me and we'll see what you can do, mmm?"

"O-okay…"

The two of them disappeared into the backrooms of the tea shop.

Aneko watched them go as she slid into the seat next to Song.

Jin sipped her cup of jasmine and asked the waitress casually, "So, she got a snowball's chance in hell of getting hired?"

Lee snorted, Song giggled helplessly and Aneko rolled her eyes. "Please, she's practically a _shoe-in_. No one else is going to apply – no one wants to work for Pao, the world's biggest skint-master, Supreme Boss of All Things Stingy."

Jin frowned. "But…you guys all work here…"

Aneko smiled over her teacup at the other girl. "I'm here for the pocket money and social interaction (who wouldn't be – look at the company!)"

"And I don't work here anymore," Song added cheerfully.

"And we didn't know any better," Lee finished absently, frown still aimed at where Mushi and Uri had entered the backrooms. "I'm _sure_ I know her from somewhere."

Song and Aneko exchanged significant glances.

"Really?"

"Wouldn't that be interesting…"

"Maybe you met her at the circus."

Pause.

All eyes zeroed in on Lee, who stood frozen. Again.

Aneko smiled with far more teeth than any teenager that wasn't, in fact, a tigershark, had any right to possess.

"_Circus_?" she said.

* * *

"Now, over here we have…"

Iroh turned around, only to find Uri kneeling facedown on the kitchens terracotta tiles, piping, "Please don't rat me out, oh Honourable General!"

Iroh paused.

Well, this was new.

"Uri, my dear child, what are you doing?"

She peered up at him. "Begging?" She winced. "Badly?"

"Yes, I can see that, but why?"

"Uh…" Uri sat up, looking perplexed. "I ran away and I don't want to be sent back?"

"I fail to see what this has to do with me," he said, crouching down to her eyelevel and raising his considerable eyebrows at her. "If you know who I am, you must also know that I, too, am a runaway."

"Oh." She appeared to ponder. "Right then." More pondering, this time with frowning. "But…you recognize me, right? You know why I was – ugh – begging, and why I know who you are – General Iroh?"

Iroh smiled genially. "Yes, dear. You do, in fact, greatly resemble your mother the last time I saw her. She was a lieutenant then, I believe."

Uri nodded. "During the Siege… She's a commander now. Three of the ships in the Southern Fleet are hers."

"Aah." He continued to smile, nodding gently. "You must be proud of her."

The girl looked down and fidgeted. "Yeah…"

Iroh sobered. "Uri," he said softly. "Why did you run away? Was it to find Hui-ying? Because if it was, I am sorry to tell you, you are going in the complete opposite direction…"

"No, it wasn't – I mean, if she'd been home I wouldn't have had to –"

Her face tensed, lips pressed painfully together, eyes tightened – before she suddenly blurted: "Dad was trying to marry me off."

The former General scowled. "Was he, indeed? You are right; had you mother been home, she would have skinned him."

Uri smiled. "That's what I said."

Iroh sighed. _What a day…_ He heaved himself to his feet and helped Uri to hers.

"Well, since Pao has left the hiring of kitchen staff to me, I see no reason not to give you a job. However," he added, at the girl's blooming grin, "you _will_ have to work. And to do that, I suppose I will have to teach you to bake."

"Bake?" exclaimed Uri.

"Bake," confirmed Iroh.

As it turned out, she was natural.

* * *

**AN2:** And thus, there was Uri. Don't worry, she's not a mari-su...mostly, she's a bit of a bad-tempered midget with a fondness for all things bakey. In anycase, you will now all be required to review posthaste. Next on BGWB, the second interlude; _Lives (Extra)Ordinary_...


	5. Int2: Lives ExtraOrdinary

**AN:** Behold, the drabbles; all the little bits that I couldn't fit anywhere else, but had to be put somewhere.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to review. I know its Soko fic and those aren't likely to get much notice, but it's nice to know this one has an audience.

And I'd like to point out this isn't solely about those two getting together, its also about Zuko having friends of his own…even if they are all girls with a tendency to boss him around…

* * *

**Interlude Two – Lives (Extra)Ordinary**

_There were no words, no voices, nothing of the corporeal that could express a pain like this. It was terrible in its familiarity; she had felt this twice before, and though she didn't know if she could put just one name to it, she knew exactly what it meant._

_Someone she cared about was being taken away from her._

_She had stayed hidden in the wreck of the ghost town's buildings, shivering and clinging to the ostrich-horse's bridle. Zuko had said to stay hidden, and there was real fear in his eyes when he told her he didn't want his sister to find her._

_So Song had stayed, and watched and waited…and now she gazed with wide and horrified eyes as cold fire caught Iroh in the chest…as he fell, slow and hard to the beaten earth. She heard Zuko's anguished cry mingle with her own shriek before she flew on frantic feet to the fallen General's side. She put her arms around him and clung. The only sounds were her sobs and…_

_And Iroh's breathing._

Stay, stay, stay,_ she chanted in her heart of hearts. _I've already lost so many; I won't lose you too… Please stay and I promise I'll do everything I can to put you back together again.

_And stay he did._

_

* * *

_

Laundry Talk

There was still work to be done when they all got home. Dishes to wash, floors to sweep, meals to be made, laundry to be washed and hung and folded…

If they had been any other man and boy, Song might have been left to do it all by herself.

But it was Iroh, and this was Zuko, and if the latter failed to help out he could always be guilted or bullied into it by the former. Though as their days spun by, there were some things that stopped being a chore.

One of these, for Zuko, at least, was doing laundry with Song.

She found he was uniquely suited to keeping the water in the copper hot, and he found she was the best at picking soaps that didn't itch or abrade the skin.

In the building twilight on early closing days, they would stand side by side, their bodies swaying in an odd, unspoken grace as they lifted wet sheets and shirts, socks and slips from the basket to the line. The nights were warm in Ba Sing Se and there always seemed to be a light breeze to dry laundry hung after dark. It was in these in-between hours that Zuko really learnt to talk.

At first it was the mandatory requests for pegs or help with a particularly fiddly tablecloth…but as the days rolled on…

"How was your day?"

"Not too bad. I learnt a new poultice for candleweed poisoning, and something we can carry with us for when Uncle next comes across White Jade…"

His laughter was a balm to busy days and irate patients. When she smiled in echo to it, it made up for bad-tempered customers and bungled tea-orders.

This was real, and for a private increment of time, everything else was make-believe.

* * *

Little Crush

It was late, and out of a slightly convoluted sense of honour (somewhere, someone was laughing at him, he was sure) he walked Aneko home.

Her house was in the lower-middle tier, and as they made their languorous way down her street he felt somehow underdressed. When he told Aneko this, she did the sensible thing and laughed at him.

When she opened the door, there was a spill of noise and light, and children's faces peeking out from every corner. Dozens of sticky smiles with missing teeth and bell-tone voices that called silly greetings…

And before he knew what was going on, two tiny people had grabbed his hands and were dragging him inside, the boy loudly retelling something called the "Battle of the Well", the girl simply gazing up at him with big, dewy, green spangled eyes.

He spent the rest of the evening in the parlor with Aneko and the kids. Ryo sat beside him, a little grinning lieutenant, while Tia, to his eternal mystification, curled in his lap and continued to gaze happily at him, as though he were her ultimate early Solstice gift.

And then, the next day…

"Someone's got a crush…" Aneko sing-songed.

"What?" He gave her an alarmed look. "Who?"

"Tia, on you."

His jaw hit the floor. "She's _six_!"

Aneko barked out a laugh. "_Pfft_. When has _that_ ever mattered?"

* * *

Singers

In the early hours of the morning, Iroh and Uri sat, carefully out of the way as the bakers went about the serious business of preparing dough and pastry for the day's sales. They watched as custard was mixed for tarts, sugar was spun in to a million tiny gems for sweets and candied biscuits, red bean was added to sesame seed balls and donuts, almond minced into moon cakes for the upcoming festival, fruit was glazed and set like jewels upon three tiered cakes…

As he watched, Iroh also watched Uri, how her eyes widened, intense with rising joy, ragged bangs caught in the random drafts of hot air from the ovens.

A flash of something, and he remembered when Lu Ten was younger, with unruly hair and bright eyes.

Back in the tea shop's smaller kitchen, they began planning their own recipes. Sweet sesame balls and egg custard tartlets, but nothing to over power the tea. Barbeque pork bao, because every one loved it. Dishes of candied oranges and pears, to compliment the more fragrant teas. Savory duck pasties, coriander and chicken dumplings with soya sauce to go with the harder black teas…

Uri was humming.

Iroh listened, a strange kind of realization brewing in his chest.

_Leaves from the vine…_

He reflected that if Azula had been born lucky and Zuko lucky to be born, then Uri had come into the world clean out of luck. Her bending was, to put it bluntly, awful. There was no power in it. Her katas were full not of tongues of flame the way Zuko's were, but showers of sparks, gusts of hot air. If power and control could be expressed as a scale, then Uri sat down the teetering end of extreme control, only the tiniest measures of power trickling through.

_Falling so slow…_

And yet…

_Like fragile tiny shells…_

And yet perhaps because of this, she excelled at baking. She could adjust the temperature of the oven with the flick of a finger, caramelized the top of a custard tart with a single gentle breath, where Zuko would have incinerated it.

_Drifting in the foam…_

"Where did you learn that song, Uri?"

She glanced a smile at him before concentrating back on the dumplings she was pressing closed. "My mom sang it to me when I sick."

_Hui-ying…_

She hummed a little more and sang the last two lines, altered slightly.

"_Little soldier girl, come marching home_

_Brave soldier girl, comes dancing home…_

"She said a friend in the military taught it to her."

Iroh smiled.

_Oh my son, whatever made you think you couldn't tell me? I would have understood…_

"Gener – Mr. Mushi, are these alright?" Uri was holding a tray of coriander and chicken dumplings for inspection.

"Yes, my dear, they are just perfect."

* * *

Complicated

It had been a good sort of day, and now it was a good sort of evening.

As the last of the customers had drifted home and he and the girls began packing up for an early closing, Jin and Song had arrived with takeaway steamboat baskets full of steamed bok choi, rice and fried shrimp wrapped in banana leaves, fried dumplings, black bean beef and a packet of honey-roasted lychee-nuts.

They had all pulled cushions out of the back storage cupboards and settled in a circle on the floor, even Iroh, despite his complaints of stiff knees. Zuko had rolled his eyes, saying only, "Uncle…"

Iroh threw up his hands. "Alright! You've convinced me!"

Much giggling had followed.

As the evening wore on the food had been passed around, the tea had flowed, and something akin to contentment had settled upon Zuko's shoulder – however temporarily.

The stars were coming out when they had packed up and set off for home. Jin caught his hand as he stepped out of the shop.

"Jin?"

"Hang on a second."

"I should really – Uncle and Song –"

"Are waiting, I know. I won't take long, I promise." She gave him a small reassuring smile. "Look, about that night…"

He was immediately uncomfortable. "Jin, I know that you…felt something. And I'm sorry I ran out on you, but…"

"No, that's not it." She bit her lip, the corner of her mouth still curled up in a half smile. "I get it, really I do. No, let me finish. I know you don't feel anything for me. It's okay. What you _do_ feel though…"

She leaned to one side, looking pointedly at Song, who was carefully putting out the green lanterns either side of the tea shop's front doors.

Zuko felt himself flush.

"What you _do_ feel," Jin smiled again, "is complicated."

* * *

Brother

Looking back, Zuko couldn't really pinpoint the first time Uri called him _ge-ge_. And over time, it was simply another fact of this new life that he could accept.

Speaking of…

"_Ge-ge_!"

And in she burst, brandishing a plate and waving the contents under his nose.

"Look! Look!"

"…they're bao."

"Yes!" She flailed, and would have upset the plate if he hadn't thought to take it from her. An expression came over her face that, disturbingly, reminded him at once of his uncle when he was about to annihilate someone in a Pai Sho match and Azula when she was about to flat out annihilate someone.

"Yes," she said. "But they're _perfect_."

And they were.

Soon after, half they plate was gone, and Zuko found himself uncomfortably full.

"This is all your fault," he muttered to a smug Uri.

"You've only yourself to blame, _ge-ge_."

* * *

Shan

Zuko hadn't been sure what to make of him. Before, he'd only really seen Shan in passing; a tall, slightly bowed figure in a well-patched blue overcoat, hair pulled back into a tightly bound queue, that extraordinary blue gaze sharp and fleeting.

He remembered, quite vividly though, the one day he'd spent any length of time in the tea shop. They had closed the clinic for the day, and while the girls and Zuko drank tea, indulging in a dish of Uri's candied fruit, Shan had settled down with Iroh, and begun a game of Pai Sho.

He hadn't really been paying attention, and then…

"I see you favour the White Lotus gambit. Not many still cling to the ancient ways…"

He had tensed, brilliant eyes switching back over his shoulder towards the two men.

Shan was smiling his bittersweet smile. "No, not many, but those who do can always find a friend."

"Lee," Aneko whispered, sensibly not risking the use of his real name in the shop, "what's up?"

"Shh," he'd muttered back, eyes hooded and focused on his uncle and the master healer. "Watch…"

And then their hands were a blur of planned movement, each tile put down without hesitation, seemingly without conscious thought…familiar and dance-like.

When the last tile was set, Iroh sat back a small serene smile on his face. "Well, journeyman, you have done well. The White Lotus opens wide to those who know her secrets, and it would appear, mine." Somewhere in his uncle's voice there was a subtle question…

…and Shan's answer contained a reassuring reply. "I'm not a huge fan of secrets, personally. The Lotus, bless her sacred petals, knows this. She also knows one can never have too many good friends."

Iroh grinned. "A man after my own heart."

"Holy spirits," Zuko muttered. "They _are_ everywhere!"

"Who're everywhere?" said Aneko.

* * *

Scolder

There were only two people in Zuko's life who got away with the line: "Stop that! No more snacking – you'll ruin your dinner!"

One of them had been his mother.

The other was Aneko.

* * *

Dee-Dee

"Uri," Aneko said to her flatmate one day. "Any particular reason for Dee-Dee's name?"

After Uri's arrival in the City, Aneko had moved out of her parents' house and gotten a reasonable apartment with Uri just inside the Lower Ring. The two of them got on – no pun intended – like a house on fire. Dee-Dee, it seemed had taken an especial shine to Aneko.

"It's just cos he thinks I'm a soft touch whose gonna feed him." To the puma twining about her legs: "Aww, someone thinks they're getting fed…_wraaaung_!"

Uri looked up from their dinner of Udon noodles. "Um, well, Dee-Dee isn't his actual name. It's a nickname. His real name is…longer."

"What is it?"

"Uh, promise you won't laugh?"

"…sure."

"Well, you know how white is a funerary colour in the Fire Nation?"

"Yeah…"

"And see how Dee-Dee's mostly white?"

"Uh-huh."

"And how he's real quick-like, almost like…a ninja?"

"Sure…"

"Well." Uri winced. "Dee-Dee's full name…is _Ninja Death Kitty_."

Aneko stared at her. Uri winced again. Then a grin bloomed on the other girl's face.

"Uri," she said. "That's AWESOME!"

* * *

Kitsune

Jin's father had run a Pai Sho house, one of the few in the Lower Ring. He had been kind, popular and well liked, and as far as she could see, there was no possible reason that he could've been murdered by anyone in their neighbourhood.

But he had been.

One night, he went out to visit friends, and didn't come back. His body, headless, was found in an overgrown courtyard two days later. They had to identify him from his hands and clothing. The Pai Sho house was shut down. In order to support themselves, Jin and her mother went to work in her uncle's vegetable shop.

Seven days after his death, Jin came home and fell into bed, feeling the not-yet-exhausted tears gather in her eyes. Through this grievous film she espied an unfamiliar smudge of green on her bedside table.

It was a jade fox, and upon the little statue's underside was her father's name beside the stamp of a white lotus.

* * *

Waking Nightmare

It begins with his voice in the doorway, and Zuko's angered response.

"They're firebenders! I know it!"

"You want a show; I'll give you a show…"

Then there is the flashing of blades, of breaking wood, of smashing teacups and flying splinters.

Iroh pulls her back from the fight, stands before her, shielding her with his body…

_Her mother's voice – breathless – "Hide, Song, quickly!"_

…and she clings to his shoulder, gazing with useless fear as the two boys fight. They barrel out into the street and she dashes forward, following. Aneko is there, wide-eyed.

"What in the heck…?"

She hears Iroh's voice beside her in the burbling crowd. "Please son, you're confused. You don't know what you're doing!"

Still the blades flash, and neither will let up – Jet because he knows something he shouldn't, Zuko because he never gives up (not without a fight), and both of them because they worry for her when neither of them should.

Desperate, she cries, "Jet! Lee! Stop this, please!"

She registers Aneko's incredulity. "You _know_ this psychopath?"

"He was on the ferry with us…"

And then it stops being a memory and starts being something else. Suddenly Jet has the upper hand; his tiger-head hooks fly out, Zuko cannot move away fast enough…

Then there is blood, and someone screaming, and it's her – and all she can see is his eyes, his blank gold eyes, blood moving in two slow runnels along the rims of his eyelids –

---S---

That morning, Zuko watched her with cautious, knowing eyes. "Are you alright?"

Her smile was small, but over-bright. "I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

He held her gaze, steady, determined. "You were crying in you sleep. Uncle snores, but I could still hear you."

She began to shake. "In my dream, he killed you."

He stepped forward and without having to be asked, put his arms around her as she breathed unsteadily into his shoulder. The sunlight touched them, warmed them, and he held her until Iroh called them both for breakfast.

* * *

Hui-ying

Uri had always found it difficult to forgive, and now was no exception.

Curled in her bed in the little room opposite Aneko's she listened for the other girl's slow breathing as well as the soft rasps Dee-Dee made as he slept. She curled tighter, and her fingers reached blindly for the bracelet on her right wrist.

_If you had been home, this never would have happened._

It wasn't the most beautiful thing she'd ever owned, but it was the most beloved. A small seven-sided pendant of rare yellow jade, a fire lily engraved on one side and a white dragon blossom on the reverse, strung on a simple length of black obsidian beads, each no bigger than a pea.

_If you had been home, I never would have run away._

Her mother gave it to her when she was seven, just after returning from the Siege of Ba Sing Se. Now, she passed her thumb over the lily and blossom, ran the beads through her fingers.

_If you had been home, I never would have met Zuko, or Song, or Iroh, or Jin, or Aneko…_

There were forty-nine of them in all and each one passed through her thumb and crooked forefinger. She counted under her breath and pretended they were the days until she would see her mother again.

* * *

Boy

The first time he dropped a tray, it was Aneko who rushed forward smiling to help. At first he thought she was laughing at him – how he'd snarled at her!

Aneko, who knew his secret very well by then, simply brushed it off and with great pragmatism, got down to cleaning up the tea. His shame was brief but scorching.

His fellow waiter saw this, and at that very moment, started them down the path of easy sibling affection that would define their relationship for the rest of their lives.

"Gad Zooks," she said, smiling again.

To his everlasting shock, she tweaked his nose.

"What are we going to do with you, hmm?"

* * *

**AN2:** Questions? Thoughts? Comments? Minor explosions?


	6. Ch3: The Lake of Lost and Found

**AN:** Hey guys, thanks to everyone who reviewed, you're such honeybunches. Und now, ze drama.

* * *

**Chapter Three – The Lake of Lost and Found**

_Song found him atop one of the rocky hills, itself now an island amongst the roiling mist. Above, the storm tore apart the sky, the clouds hanging and shifting like rank upon rank of air ships, each releasing great salvos of rain. Lightning glowed and shattered overhead, followed by the huge voices of thunder and it was then that she truly feared for him._

_Zuko did not give up, not without a fight. She didn't doubt that he would find his own lightning, but she hoped, perhaps a little selfishly that the lightning wouldn't find him._

_And there he was, shoulders hunched, as defeated as she had ever seen him (her heart broke a little then), almost curled in upon himself. His clothes and hair were sodden, the rain streaming on his skin._

_Some inner part of her knew it was mingled with frustrated tears. She didn't think he could truly shed them for less than that._

_He only looked up when she stood over him, one small hand upon his shoulder. The sound of the rain beating upon her improvised umbrella was warm somehow and she mustered a rueful smile for him. His gaze was so terribly bleak…_

_Carefully, she settled herself beside him, fighting not to let her shivers show._

"_Lightning won't come for desire alone," she murmured, taking one of his hands in hers. "We're just going to have to endure for a while." Song let her smile grow and gently squeezed his hand. "But we'll get there…we always do…"_

_He finally smiled back. She felt warmth gather around them as he fed his inner flame, steaming their clothes dry and warming them in the cool air._

_For a long time after that, they huddled together and shared the patterns the sky made above them._

_

* * *

_

Aneko arrived at work that morning just in time to see Zuko exiting the shop's front door.

"Hey Lee."

Her only answer was a snarl.

Both the girl's eyebrows headed north.

"Aah, you okay?"

More snarling.

"Alrighty then. See you inside?"

A snarl that might have been, 'maybe.'

Aneko wisely left it at that and headed into the shop.

Iroh was there, talking to a well-dressed man and what looked suspiciously like his two bodyguards. Pao was sulking behind the counter while Aneko could see Uri peeping out from the raffia hangings that divided the kitchen from the counter area.

"What's going on?" she whispered to her flatmate.

Uri glanced at her, dark amber eyes huge, before fixing back on Iroh and his guests. "Not too sure – I was in the kitchen when they came in – but I heard some it; this guy, Quon, just offered Mr. Mushi his own teashop, in the Upper Ring. He gets to name it and everything."

Aneko's feet immediately went cold – this couldn't be good. Her feet always reacted like this to bad news.

"Uri," she muttered back. "If Mushi goes, so will Lee, and then you and I will be stuck here. With Pao."

There was a pause.

Then Uri's gaze switched onto her and held.

"I have two words you," the shorter girl said. "Screw. That."

Aneko grinned. "Agreed."

* * *

It had been a quiet day.

Shan had sent her home early when Jin had dropped by with news of Iroh's teashop offer. Admittedly, moving to a new apartment in the Upper Ring would make getting down through the City to work a little difficult, but Shan understood what an opportunity this was for her new family and had made noises about making a few small time allowances.

That, and Song was looking forward to having running hot water again. Lower Ring plumbing was no great shakes, especially in the region of bathrooms…

She had just set the last folded _jeogori_ into her packing case, next to the little treasure chest Zuko had retrieved from home for her, when she heard the door in the next room slide open as the self same boy entered their apartment.

"So," Iroh's voice filtered through her bedroom door. "I was thinking about names for my new tea shop. How about the Jasmine Dragon‌? It's dramatic, poetic, has a nice ring to it."

In her room, Song fought to keep from giggling. But the smile faded at Zuko's response.

"The Avatar's here, in Ba Sing Se." There was the rustle of paper. She marveled silently at the unfamiliar malice in his voice. "And he's lost his bison."

_What?_

"We have a chance for a new life here."

_Oh, Uncle..._

"If you start stirring up trouble, we could lose _all_ the good things that are happening for us."

_Good things…_ And could that possibly have included her?

"Good things that are happening for _you_!" He sounded so _angry_… "Have you ever thought that I want more from life than a nice apartment and a job serving tea‌?"

The tears began, gathering traitorously upon her eyelids, stinging. How she could have possibly missed this, this discontent; how could she have not seen it coming…?

Iroh spoke again, so very earnest. "There is nothing wrong with a life of peace and prosperity. I suggest you think about what it is that you want for your life, and why."

Zuko's reply was low, dangerous, and Song shivered at this somehow new quality in his voice. New, because he had never spoken to her like that. How could this be the same boy who had always been so kind to her?

"I want my destiny."

"What that means is up to you." Uncle was philosophical, but she could hear the warning underneath. "But you might recall how this will affect others; what about Song?"

Her heart caught painfully in her throat.

Zuko, savagely: "What _about_ Song?"

_No…how can you not care?_

Something broke open in her chest, rending almost gently, softly and without sound. Splitting as helplessly as fruit beneath one of Uri's kitchen knives, like one of Iroh's teacups carelessly dropped or the fallen leaves that gathered in the courtyard crushed underfoot.

_Please don't leave again…_

_I won't. I promise…_

It was without thought that she jammed her feet into her shoes, blindly flung back her bedroom door and dashed across the living room.

_Stay, stay, stay… I've already lost so many; I won't lose you too… Please stay and I promise I'll do everything I can to put you back together again._

Peripherally, she registered the shock on Iroh's face and the dawning horror on Zuko's.

_Are you okay?_

_In my dream, he killed you…_

She slammed open the door to the hallway and was halfway down it before she heard him calling her name.

_I know what you've been through. We've all been through it. The Fire Nation has hurt you…_

Then she was clattering down the stairs, and nothing else mattered but that she run, run, run…

_It's okay. They've hurt me, too…_

_

* * *

_

"I'll kill him."

The savagery in Uri's voice was suspiciously familiar.

Song lay upon Aneko's bed while her friend held one of her hands with her own and combed out Song's long hair with the other in smooth, gentle strokes. It was calming, comforting and very slightly bittersweet; Aneko combed hair just the way Song's mother had.

She hiccupped softly in the aftermath of her sobbing and her eyes felt scratchy, dull as she and Aneko watched Uri pace back and forward across the girls' apartment.

"Somehow," Aneko replied, "I don't think that's a feasible option. Don't get me wrong," she added, as Uri glowered. "I totally share the sentiment, but ripping him into tiny bite-sized pieces and feeding him to Dee-Dee (however satisfying it might be) isn't really going to solve the problem."

"I don't think it's a problem we can solve," Song whispered.

Two pairs of eyes – hazel and amber – gazed at her sadly.

"Oh, _bao bei_," Aneko said softly.

Song shook her head, scratching her cheek on the bender's skirt. "No. You can't change how a person feels…"

"Maybe," Uri said, peeved. "But you can sure as hell punish betrayal."

"Uri –"

"That's what this is," the little firebender snapped. "Zuko's our friend. We trusted him – and now he's decided he's just going to abandon us (and Iroh!) to follow this will-o-the-wisp, wild hog-monkey chance of capturing the Avatar. The _Avatar_ for crying out loud!" Uri threw up her hands in disgust. "It's ridiculous!"

Aneko sighed. "I hate to be the demon's advocate here –"

Uri growled.

"But while, yeah, it's ridiculous for us, it's not ridiculous to him. He wants to go home, Uri, and he sees capturing the Avatar as the return ticket."

"That's it though!" Their Fire Nation girl shook her head. "This is home now – I'm happy here, why can't he be?"

Aneko's voice was quiet, and very, very sad. Never once did she stop combing Song's hair.

"Because there's a crucial difference between you and Zuko; you ran away, but he was banished. Boiled down, you chose this…"

Aneko squeezed her hand – a silent apology.

"…he didn't."

Song closed her eyes, tears running anew, and began to understand.

* * *

It was late when she got home. Uri and Aneko had walked back with her (just in case) and hugged her on the doorstep.

And so, here she was, hesitating on the landing outside the apartment, full up with a better, albeit reluctant understanding of the boy she had lived with for the past three months. Her mother had always said people only change if they want to; you can led an ostrich-horse to water but you can't make him drink. It would have to be up to Zuko to decide where his future lay, and Song would have to make the best of it.

She sighed quietly and was careful to slide back the door with as little noise as possible. Iroh was sleeping – she smiled – she could hear his snores from here. This probably meant Zuko would be too…

Or not.

He stood at the living room window, clad completely in fitting black, his Dao across his shoulders. With his back to her, she could see his fingers working at the final tie of a ceramic oni mask.

_Not again…_

She remembered nights waiting on tenter-hooks for him to come back; watching full of fear as he put on that mask, believing that she slept as he crept away and back, sacks full of thief-in-the-night treasure left around the campsite. Once, it was a bag full of silks that he laid at her feet…

She padded silently over to him and just as he balanced upon the windowsill, making ready to leap out into the night, she caught his wrist.

He turned his head sharply, relaxing only minutely when he registered it was her.

Song simply gazed back at him, letting her hand slip down into his and running a comforting thumb over his knuckles.

_His choice…_

"Just promise me you'll be careful," she whispered.

He gave a single sharp nod…and then quite unexpectedly, raised her hand to the face of the mask and gently pressed the backs of her fingers to its grinning, painted mouth. She saw his eyes, glinting, uneven, within the hollow orbits of Blue Spirit.

Both smiled, one unseen, before he let her go and disappeared into the balmy Ba Sing Se dark.

* * *

In that same Ba Sing Se dark, the Fox stood, cloak billowing slow and easy in the summer breeze, Noh mask shining like a second captive moon. They stood upon the apex of a neighbouring building, watching silently as the Blue Spirit took off, leaping with enviable grace across the rooftops.

"He's searching for something."

The Fox did not stir, but made a soft affirmative noise in their throat. At their feet, riding low on the apartment building's roof were two men in Dai Li garb, waiting, at attention, ever at the ready.

"Your orders?"

"Follow him, and do not let yourself be seen."

One agent immediately set off after the Blue Spirit, silent as ever.

"As for you," the Fox continued, addressing the remaining man. "Continue your watch detail on the Avatar and his friends."

The hidden mouth behind the lipless shell smiled.

"I have a feeling their paths are about to cross, however small that crossing may be."

* * *

It felt spectacularly odd to be at work without Iroh manning the teapots. When customers ordered one of his famous white teas or delightful greens or invigorating blacks…Aneko would have to say with regret, "Mr. Mushi doesn't work here anymore, I'm sorry. Pao is making the tea from now on."

Whereupon she would politely turn her back to give them time to flee with all haste. She didn't blame them.

As the day progressed the customer base got thinner and thinner, and Pao despaired. Aneko stood yawning at the counter. Uri had the oven and steamer down to their lowest ebb without putting out the flame. Both girls were bored out of their collective skulls.

Uri stuck her head out of the kitchen. "Hey."

"Mmm?"

"Now's as good a time as ever, d'ya reckon?"

Aneko scanned the tables. Two cops and a trio of old men playing a rather sad game of Ba Sing Se Hold'Em. Uri was right; now was as good a time as ever.

"Yeah," she said easily. "Alright. Let's do it."

The two girls picked themselves up and dug around in Aneko's bag (with the two of them living a working together it seemed silly to have separate bags – although Aneko always seemed to be the one carrying it…) emerging with two near identical slips of paper. Together they went to find Pao, who had currently abandoned the teapots and was sulking again in his office.

"Mr. Pao?"

Their boss looked up. He looked a little haggard, and Aneko briefly felt sorry for him. Then she thought having to work every day without Zuko and Iroh. Oh hell to the N-O.

For one thing, she would miss them.

And for another, Uri would quickly go stark raving mad.

"Pao," Aneko announced. She'd had a speech planned…but at this point, it seemed somewhat…redundant. "Here," she said instead, putting down her slip on his desk. Uri did the same.

Pao looked at the girls, then at the paper slips. "What are these?"

Uri and Aneko exchanged looks. Uri glowered. Aneko sighed.

"They're resignation letters. We quit."

* * *

"Head waitress!" Pao called after them as the girls walked from the shop's front door.

Aneko raised a laconic eyebrow. "I'm the _only_ waitress."

"Head of _staff_! Assistant Manager! Wait, wait – _Senior_ Assistant Manager!"

_Ohh, boy…_

Aneko exchanged looks with a disgusted Uri.

"Pao, who would I manage? Uri?"

The shop owner blinked. "…yes?"

"No," Uri overruled disinterestedly, rooting through Aneko's bag. "I'm unmanageable."

Aneko sighed, shooing the little firebender away and digging out the tightly wrapped packet of honey-roasted bamboo shoots she had been after. "Look," she told Pao as she did so. "This isn't personal. Its just business. The money is where Mushi goes and in order to pay our rent, we have to follow the money…"

Uri grinned around a mouthful of shoots. "Yeah, stick-y bid-iss."

Aneko rolled her eyes and dragged the smaller girl away from the pained shop owner standing in his doorway.

"Aneko? Uri? What are you two doing leaving so early?"

It was Song, her satchel upon one shoulder, smiling despite the faint circles under her pretty brown eyes. To her mild surprise both girls cried "Song!" and leapt forward to hug her.

"Um, hello. Nice to see you, too. What's going on?"

"We quit!" Uri cried, executing a neat little pirouette of euphoria. "We quit and we're going to work in the new shop with Gener – Mushi!"

Song was bewildered. "What?"

"Steady on," Aneko added. "We have to ask him first."

Uri laughed and Song smiled again.

"Yeah right," went Uri, sneering good-naturedly. "We'll _so_ get hired. I'm the bakeist and everyone only stuck with Pao before Mushi and Lee showed up because they knew you liked the tips." She slung an arm around Song's shoulders. "'Sides, Song'll put in a good word for us."

"You hardly need one," Song murmured, eyes sparkling with good spirits.

Uri squeed and gave her a squeeze. The three girls linked arms and began strolling.

"So," Aneko began. "Since we're on the subject, why have _you_ finished so early, sweet pea?"

Song sighed, smiling a little sheepishly. "I'd like to say that Master Shan was being charitable and giving me the afternoon because he saw I was feeling…delicate."

Uri grinned. "But?"

"But, his exact words were 'Holy gods and ancestors, girl, if you can't get your act together go home and get some rest!'"

"Yeah, that sounds like Shan."

"So you're going home for the day?" Uri was all big eyes and eagerness. "Will Mushi and Lee be there, d'ya think?"

Song gave a one shouldered shrug. "They weren't when I left this morning. I think they got up early to go begin working on the new shop."

They strolled towards Song's place, chatting as they went about what the new shop could be like, what name Iroh would settle on, what the kitchen would be like, what kind of new staff would be hired…

When Song bid them goodbye she was in far better spirits than she had been last night.

"Think Zooks redeemed himself?" Uri whispered as they headed towards their own apartment.

Aneko held up her crossed fingers. "Here's hoping," she whispered back.

* * *

**AN2:** Review jammy people.


	7. Ch4: The Hidden Prince

**AN:** And this is where it all gets twisty…

* * *

**Chapter Four – The Hidden Prince**

_The shrine was still covered in early morning mist when they arrived, still making their way back to civilization and away from the haunting hills surrounding the ghost town. It stood, like many in this area, at a crossroads. Song smiled when she saw two of the little figurines sitting within the shelter of the alcove; a brass kirin, badly tarnished and a little wooden speckle-hawk._

_Iroh was surprisingly solemn that day, rubbing the still-healing wound on his chest; but then she learned later that he was always like this around sacred places. Song thought that perhaps it was because of his son, just as it was now for her with her parents._

_Zuko, however, seemed confused – she read it in his face – his eyes darting, watchful, between his friend and uncle. When she bought a pair of incense sticks from a roadside stall lingering beside the little pilgrims' shrine, the prince stood with her, waiting 'til the merchant wasn't looking before lighting the incense for her. They knelt and watched them burn, the scented smoke mingling with the ebbing mist,__ flavouring__ it with the subtle sweetness of peonies._

_When the sun began to rise in earnest, he caught her eye and looked a silent question at her. She offered him a weak smile._

"_Today would've been my parents wedding anniversary," she told him quietly._

_Zuko gazed at her for a few seconds and Song looked away, cheeks burning. She was startled when he came back, a third stick in his hand, this one scented with sugar-almonds, and set it in the censer next to hers._

_When she looked her own unspoken question at him, he did as she had done, and gave back a small smile._

"_It'll be my mother's birthday next month…"_

_

* * *

_

It was late afternoon when they finally arrived home. As they entered the apartment, he noted Song's shoes tucked neatly to one side of the door and amongst all the exhaustion and emotional turmoil, he felt something akin to warmth seep through him. Vaguely, he wondered where she was in the apartment, why she was home so early.

Unfamiliar heat spiked in his chest.

_What…?_

There was the sound of the front door being slid closed. He realized Uncle was speaking. "You did the right thing, letting the Avatar's bison go free."

_Did I?_

The heat roared, pouring out angrily beneath his skin. Molten, alive.

"Uncle? Zuko?"

It was Song, standing like a cream and green vision before him, a growing smile on her sweet face. As the world hazed, he thought that if only he could touch her, everything would be right, everything would be saved. He didn't resist when she hugged him. With a kind of frightening hyperawareness, he felt her breath on his neck, somehow cool. Her hair smelt like peaches…

Neither would ever know why, but somehow Song must have sensed that something wasn't right.

"Zuko?" she whispered, standing back from him a little.

"I don't feel right," he rasped softly, then collapsed forward.

Song gasped but caught him, her legs folding like wet paper under her as she took his weight, so that she ended up on the floor with him cradled on his side against her.

"Zuko!" he heard his Uncle cry, then hands were on him, lifting a turning him, letting him come to rest upon the floor, something soft beneath his head. Cool fingers upon his cheeks and forehead. They felt like ice upon his scar, itself an igniting brand.

"He's burning up…"

Burning up…wick and candle, breath and flame; burning, burning, burning, why did it hurt? The world was cruelly out of focus and all he wanted was to see her face.

A voice like his mother's said, _"Go to sleep, beautiful boy."_

_No, I won't and I'm not._

But he did…

* * *

Evening, and the Fox's words lay upon the minds of the two agents as they hung, clinging expertly to the stone ceiling above a dying boy and his two friends.

…_their paths are about to cross, however small that crossing may be…_

_Such a small crossing,_ thought one, as he drew a blowpipe from his sleeve, loaded two darts and shot them neatly into the necks of the sobbing girl and the boy with the bow.

_Such a strange crossing,_ reflected the other as he thought back to the boy and his uncle, the two of them guiding a grumbling bison down the greenlit hall of the Lake Complex.

Both dropped smoothly from the ceiling as the children collapsed with soft gasps beside their already downed friend. With careful, economical movements, they bent the earth about them, carrying themselves and their young charges to the surface.

As the beaten soil yawned wide to admit them, they espied figures, each in a hooded charcoal coloured cloak, waiting for them on the shore. Over head the stars gleamed cold, welcoming in their nonjudgmental way. The night sky reflected upon the face of the quiescent waters, giving no hint to the drama that had befallen them that day. And silent, upon the edge of the water, was the Fox, a cat-owl shifting upon their left shoulder.

The children were carried on canvas stretchers to a waiting carriage, the murmurs of their sleep lost amongst the rustle of their rescuers cloaks.

"Where are they to be taken?" asked one of the cloaked men.

There was a sigh from the Fox, and they turned from the lake. "The boy is injured, you said?"

"Yes."

The Fox nodded. "Take them to a healer. There's one in the Lower Ring; clever, discrete."

"Safe?"

A second nod. "One of ours. The apprentice won't be any problem either; she knows them. She'll help see them safe."

There was a cry from the carriage. The Fox strode up the bank to where two of the cloaked men were trying to subdue Jet. "He's feverish," one said.

Jet stilled as the Fox leant over him, his dark eyes filled with the vision of the glowing Noh mask. "Am I dead?" he whispered.

"No," murmured the Fox. "But go back to sleep, Jet. Things will look much better in the morning. I promise."

Without another word, his eyes slipped closed, and his world went dark.

* * *

Shan had always been a light sleeper, and so he heard them coming even before the soft knocking began on his front door. It was three hours after sunset.

_At this hour,_ he thought, limping hurriedly downstairs from his apartment to the clinic, _this can only mean trouble._

_

* * *

_

Night, and Song sat below the living room window, eyes half closed; temple and left shoulder leant against the wall. In the stagnant dark, she could hear Iroh's soft snores, and over them, Zuko's feverish rasps.

He shifted fitfully in his sleep, dreaming, perhaps. She heard his breathing hitch and was by his side in an instant, her fingers against his cheek, thumb brushing the paper-thin skin below his right eye. He surfaced a little, not enough for coherence, but enough for her to safely drip water into his mouth while carefully checking his pulse. It alternated between pacing sluggishly and beating like a trapped sparrowkeet.

_Oh, Zuko…_

"Eeowhoo."

_What on earth?_

She looked up sharply. There was a cat-owl on the windowsill, glowering at her with self-importance. When she simply stared at it, it flapped restlessly, and she finally caught sight of the message tube attached to one of its legs. It didn't resist when she detached the tube and emptied the tiny vessel into her hand. To her surprise, the missive was addressed to her.

_Song,_

_Emergency at the clinic – life or death – need your help – get here now._

_Shan._

"You should go."

She started and looked up to see Iroh sitting beside his nephew, rumpled and sleep worn. His eyes caught the meagre moonlight and shone like pennies.

"How did you know…?"

Iroh shrugged. "Who else would be sending you notes at this time except Shan? It must be urgent, though, Song. You should go."

Her gaze was pained. "I can't. Zuko –"

"Is my nephew," he reminded her gently. "I can look after him for now. Go."

* * *

The waiting room was dark when she stepped in. The only light in the clinic seemed to come from behind the screens that hid the patient rooms. It showed up the thin spots in the screens' paint; suddenly they didn't look as dark as they did in daylight.

"Master Shan?"

"Here, Song, quickly."

She dropped her satchel upon one of the waiting room seats and hurried over. There were three cots set up, two occupied with sleeping lumps beneath blankets. Shan stood beside the third clad in what she recognized as his operating clothes – a white smock over his usual blue tunic, a bandana over his forehead to keep sweat out of his eyes and a white linen mask for nose and mouth, currently resting upon his chest. There was a tray of ominous-looking steel tools on a small table beside him.

But it was the unconscious figure on the bed that reeled her in.

"Oh holy ancestors," she breathed. "Jet…"

"Yes," Shan muttered. "That's what they said his name was."

He gloved his hands in glowing water.

"Scrub up and gear up, Song, we have a lot of work ahead of us."

* * *

There was blood under her nails. Song shivered. Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the scrubbing brush. Her hands shook. The water in the basin was very faintly pink.

"Song?"

Shan slid open the slider that led to his apartment – she was in his washroom. They had worked on Jet for a little over three hours. Dawn was barely nearer than when they started. He looked as weary as she felt.

"I've made tea. Are you…?"

Song looked at him. Her lip trembled. Her hands were still shaking. She hiccupped.

Shan let out a ragged sigh and carefully pried the brush from her hands. He held them under the water and made several small twitching motions with his fingers. As she watched, the blood bent itself from under her nails, spiraling like dancing ribbons of rust red. Shan took a linen towel from the rail beside the basin and slowly dried her hands.

"The first time I operated," he began, his voice low and calming. "I was terrified. I was passing through a village that had suffered several landslips recently; it was spring, the rains were brutal that year. Several young benders went to practice while the earth was still soft. A slip came down, and one ended up with a huge splinter through his chest. Both ends had broken off; there was no way to get it out without cutting him open.

"I did the stupid thing and volunteered to help."

Song took a shaking breath. "Did he live?" she whispered.

Shan nodded. "He did. Nearly lost him to blood loss – I really didn't have a clue back then – but I muddled through and he lived. I was sick for a week though."

She looked him a question.

The healer smiled. "I'd never seen so much blood in my entire life. Much of the healing that goes on up at the Pole is very clean, very bloodless. I cut that boy open and I thought I was going to pass out then and there.

"My point is, Song, that you handled your first operation far better than I ever did. You were quick and competent and you didn't once bring up your guts. All apprentices should be as stalwart as you."

She managed a faint smile. "Thank you, sifu."

Shan smiled back. "Come." He led her into the living room. "As I said, I've made tea, or attempted to. Mushi has probably spoiled you down at Pao's shop."

Her face clouded at the mention of Uncle.

"What's the matter?"

She frowned into her lap. "It's just – I wasn't going to come down here at first," she told him. "Lee…Lee is very sick. He came home this afternoon and collapsed with a fever. I was afraid to leave, but Mushi said he would be alright…"

The healing master was giving her a very shrewd look. "You think it's that serious?"

She blinked at him. "I – I'm not sure, but – yes. Yes it seems serious to me. I've never seen a fever this bad. Uncle doesn't seem that phased but…"

"I understand." Shan looked thoughtful. She watched as he got to his feet and pulled a small bottle out his personal set of medicine draws. It was about a finger length long and bore a crescent moon in silver ink on its side. Beyond the smoky glass she could make out viscous violet liquid. To her surprise, when he resumed his seat, he handed the bottle to her.

"What – what is this?"

"A feverfew. It will help relieve his symptoms and keep some of the pain at bay."

She smiled. "Thank you. Is there a recipe, so that I can make more of it later…?"

He gave her a rueful look. "It's easy enough to make, there are only three ingredients: arnica, white dragon blossom, crushed dreamseed…oh, and blessed water."

Song stared at him. "…blessed water?"

He nodded. "From the Spirit Oasis of the North Pole. My waterbending master gave me a vial of it before I left. It has special properties – healing things that would be beyond even the most accomplished bender. There are only three drops of it in that particular infusion, but it should be more than enough for your friend Lee."

His apprentice was stunned. "Master Shan…this is…" She bowed at the waist, as much as one could sitting down. "Thank you, thank you so much…" She sat up and gave him a small perplexed frown. "But…you said there are only three ingredients. You mentioned four."

Shan stroked his goateed chin. "So I did. Tell you a secret?"

She nodded eagerly. He grinned.

"The dragon blossom is just for flavour."

* * *

It's just as before. He sits upon the throne. He cannot feel the scar upon his face. The flames veil him.

There is someone kneeling before the throne.

_Song._ Song in white Fire Nation mourning robes. There is something crumpled in front of her…the Red Dragon, its great flanks still and shrunken. In the crackling quiet, he can hear Song breathing, soft and hitching with tears, yet he cannot move his limbs, cannot go to her.

She lifts her woebegone face – and the tears trailing over her cheeks are made of blood.

"What will you do?" she whispers. "Oh, my Lord, what will you do…?"

* * *

"Uncle!"

Iroh looked up as Song came barreling in, face full of an elated smile.

"What is it, my dear?"

She waved a small lavender bottle for him to see. "Shan gave me something for Zuko's fever."

He looked doubtful. "Song, I am not sure that –"

Her face softened. "I know. It's not a normal fever. But, Uncle, this infusion has blessed water in it; from the Spirit Oasis in the North Pole…surely, this can help. Or at least can't hurt?"

Iroh frowned looking thoughtful. "Tui and La," he murmured. "Push and pull, yin and yang." A smile grew on his lips. "Give him the infusion, dear girl. You are right; it can't hurt."

Her smile could have outshone the sun.

Iroh watched as she knelt by his nephew, expression tender. Silently, he got up and began preparing the morning meal.

* * *

_There were whispers…_whispers and cool hands against his face.

"Zuko? It's me…its Song."

_Song…she was here, she was safe…_

"Come on, I need you to sit up a little. Can you do that for me?"

He peeled his eyes open, gazing at her. Sweet face, silk skin, liquid eyes…

"You were crying," he rasped. He lifted one hand, traced the path the tears had taken in the dream.

She smiled. "No, look, see? No tears." She held up something; a small bottle, its contents glowing softly (or was that fever clouding his eyes again?) "Shan gave me this, for your sickness. Here…" She helped him sit up a little, one hand to the back of his neck, the other still holding the bottle as he drank.

Relief swept through him, ribbons of soothing cold. His vision ebbed, swam as he sank into healing sleep. Something tickled either side of his face, and he felt Song's thumbs swiping gently at his cheeks and temples.

"No," she murmured. "No tears…"

The last thing he felt before he was swept away was the sensation of her lips on his forehead.

* * *

Just as Zuko slipped beneath the veil of sleep, Jet struggled to part it.

Vision initially blurred, all he could make out was a dusky face framing two spots of blue…

"Katara?" he rasped hopefully.

"No," came the stony answer, and the dusky face resolved into that of an irate Water Tribe man.

There was a giggle from his shoulder, and when he cautiously turned his head, he saw Smellerbee, her arms folded on the bed where he lay. Longshot stood at her shoulder, and both of them looked suspiciously muzzy, as though they had recently woken up.

"What happened to you two?"

They exchanged looks, but it was the tribesman who spoke.

"They're suffering the aftereffects of a rather potent knockout draft. It'll be about an hour before it wears off fully." Those unnerving blue eyes were fixed on him again. "It's good that you're up though, we'll only have a few hours after sunset."

Jet stared at him. "What's happening after sunset?"

"We get you out of Ba Sing Se."

The young rebel twisted his head awkwardly, trying to see who had spoken. The tribesman stepped back…and there she was.

"Song," he said softly, voice suddenly hoarse.

The healer lent her head against the edge of the screen and gazed at him with those big sad eyes. "Hey Jet."

* * *

Four figures darted from doorway to doorway through the whispering city night. Two blocks from their destination, the tallest faltered, one hand going to his ribs as his tangle-haloed head bowed in pain.

The others paused and drew around him, gently urging him forward. Slowly, carefully, they continued past those two blocks, until they arrived at an abandoned building near the outer wall of Ba Sing Se. They filed down an alleyway on the building's left side, leading to a side door.

One figure drew out a set of keys, unlocked the door and led her companions inside. They emerged in what appeared to be a kitchen.

"What is this place?" Smellerbee whispered, drawing back her hood. She and Longshot were gazing about them, taking in the dust covered floors, moldering furnishing and scattered utensils. The ovens had been torn out, probably by thieves hoping to recycle the clay, leaving a gaping hole in the floor that lead directly to the earth below. The air reeked of the stale spices still hanging in blackened bunches overhead.

Song closed the door behind her and padded over, hoisting her skirts slightly to keep them out of the dust. "It used to be a Pai Sho house. The owner was killed five years ago. This is where Master Shan's friends will meet you, to get you out of the city." She gave them a small sad smile. "I should go."

"Song."

She paused, looked back inquiringly at Smellerbee. The younger girl bit her lip, then darted forward and gave Song a clumsy hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "For helping us."

Song let out a soft gasp, then fiercely hugged back. "You're welcome. I'm just glad you're all safe."

They parted, both feeling slightly misty. Longshot tipped his head to the healer, murmuring very softly, "Thank you." Song smiled and nodded back. Smellerbee stepped away, over to the archer, who put one hand on her shoulder. He was the only one who saw the single tear slide down before it was swiped away by one ragged sleeve.

Behind them, Jet spoke softly to Song. His dark eyes were very earnest, and he laid one hand on her arm as he did so. "I've said it before, but I'll say it again," he murmured. "You don't have to stay with him. Them." She could feel the warmth of him in the air around her. "Come with us," he whispered.

Her own eyes shining, Song gazed back at him. "Oh, Jet." She reached up and touched his cheek once, before placing her hand over his where it lay on her arm. "You need to let go of this. I told you before; they won't hurt me. Ir – Mushi has always looked after me, never raised a hand to me, and always made sure I was safe and at least had the _hope_ of happiness. And Lee…" She let out a soft sigh. "He's a good man. An honourable man; he just needs to realize it."

Jet gazed back at her, a look of disbelief taking over his features. "You love him," he breathed.

Song flushed and looked away. "Be safe, Jet. Farewell."

And with that, she darted away, and back out into the night.

Jet stared after her, stunned.

Then the ground hummed.

"Uh, Jet?"

He turned to his friends. "What is it?"

"Don't know, but its coming from the pit."

The exposed ground where the oven had been hummed and rumbled, then broken open in two perfect segments, which fell away to reveal three figures in a tunnel below.

At either side of the hole were two earthbenders. One had a thin knife scar across his face, while the other had hair one shade away from auburn. Both wore their hair in a single long braid. And standing between them, gazing up at the children with hidden eyes…

"Hello, Jet," said the Fox. "Climb down, and please be quick. We've quite a way to go."

* * *

**AN2:** Review…you know you want to.


	8. Int3: Field of Fever Dreams

**Interlude Three – Field of Fever Dreams**

_As they waited, she watched him sleep._

_The world felt smaller here in the flower shop, small than it had that morning, filled as it was with discoveries of wanted posters and the torment of the Rough Rhinos. Not since his niece almost shattered Iroh on the living blades of her lightning had Song felt such crippling terror._

_She remembered the how Mongke's men had leered at her as she clung to Zuko, feeling his rage seethe beneath his skin in physical heat. She remembered one man's attempt to grab her, and the Prince's wrath as he repelled the rider, wrapping his own swing-chains about his throat and throwing him back with a blast of heat._

_So close…so close she'd felt it on her face. She shivered as they urged the ostrich-horses away, shivered as they dismounted outside the desert bar. He had taken her shoulders and gazed at her with his uneven eyes._

"_Song?"_

_She shook her head. "I just…"_

"_She is frightened, nephew, and why not? That was a brush with danger I would have liked to avoid."_

_Still he gazed at her, searching._

"_Zuko," she whispered, voice full of pain, "you have to understand, the last time I saw that much fire, that close…"_

"_When the raiders came," he said, face guarded._

"_Before that," she breathed, eyes downcast to one particular place on her right leg… He had stared at her for a few seconds, then dropped his hands from her shoulders and silently followed Iroh into the bar. Shivering, she had followed._

_Here, now, in the flower shop, she watched him sleep, and remembered his hands on her shoulders, the concern as he looked at her… Her faith grew back again, stronger than before, and silently, she curled up next to him, letting his arm slip around her and resting her head upon his shoulder._

_Within minutes, she was asleep too._

_

* * *

_

"Where am I?" he asks no one.

Beneath his feet, the path stretches away, curving, becoming the top of a great wall. He cautiously makes his way to the edge and peers down. Leagues below he can see fields, each one merely a single patch in what should be a great rolling quilt of green. Beyond is a second wall, and beyond that gentle hills covered in cityscape.

Yet everything, _everything_ is layered with snow. His booted feet crush drifts of flakes with every step he takes. As he gazes outwards, stunned, a wind kicks up, throwing handfuls of snow into the air, sending them dancing in tiny cyclones about his ankles. He staggers back to the safety of the centre of the pathway, bracing his feet against the cold stone.

"Don't be afraid," a voice says, strangely clear through the wind. "You can't fall."

He looks up.

It's Jin.

She is walking slowly towards him, unfazed by the wind and snow. White furs are layered around her shoulders, their colour showing up the duskiness of her skin, the darkness of her hair which she wears bound with a single lotus blossom. He can see the pale brown of her boots flashing as she moves. Her eyes are discs of jade in her watchful face. Clasped loosely in one hand is something small and pale green, a statue perhaps.

There is a sharp bark, and when he looks down, he sees that Jin is not alone. Trotting a few paces in front and to one side of the girl is a creature usually only seen in legend.

A snow vixen.

Just as the silver-coated knowledge seekers are the assistants of Wan Shi Tong, so the vixens patrol the edges of the spirit world, turning back souls unready to die, those still wearing the sparks of life. This one gazes at him, its eyes electric cyan. The angles of its small face, the movements of the wind through its luxuriant pelt are so very supernatural.

"It doesn't snow in Ba Sing Se," Jin says. She smiles. "Not usually, anyway."

He frowns. "No, not usually," he echoes, unsure of where this is going.

She tilts her head. He sees her thumb move over the small statue in her hand.

"You're going to see some pretty unusual things, Zuko. The question is, will you be ready?"

She smiles again. Her arm swings – "Catch," she says – and she tosses him the statue. It feels cold as it strikes his cupped palms. Just as he parts his fingers to see what it is –

* * *

He woke, still in the old apartment. In the rich morning sunlight arcing across the room, he could make out their old furniture, stacked and ready to be taken away. A stack of boxes cast a cool shadow over him and his temporary bedding. He shivered.

_Moving day,_ he thought hazily.

Turning his head he spotted a semi-familiar lump a few feet away. Semi-familiar, because he knew what Song looked like when she slept, but he'd never seen her so thoroughly curled up like that upon a large floor cushion. Someone (probably Iroh) had draped a blanket over her, though her unbound hair still lay in a rich brown spill over the edge of the cushion and onto the polished floor. There were kinks and waves in it from being braided, and each of these caught the sunlight that pooled in the room.

Wheezing with effort, he levered himself half upright and reached out. His fingers were just able to touch her hair, to comb through a lock of it. He lay back, arm still stretched out and simply gazed at her before drifting back to sleep, soothed by the rhythm of her breathing.

Iroh and Aneko found them like that an hour later as they returned with food for the morning meal; a boy wreathed in shadow, reaching out to a girl bathed in light, both oblivious to the movements of the other.

* * *

"So, moving day," Jin said as the three girls lent against the apartment building's front wall.

"Yup," said Uri, watching the Quon's men moving like ants to and from the main entrance as they brought down the furniture Iroh had added since arriving in Ba Sing Se.

"And that Quon guy is paying for all this? Just so he can have Mr. Mushi make tea for him?"

Aneko gave the other girl a look. "You've tasted that tea. What do you think?"

Jin thought about it. "Good point. And you guys got hired for the new shop?"

Uri was smug. "Not only that," she sing-songed with a grin that nearly broke her face in half, "we get to go on the shopping trips…"

Jin stared at her. "Shopping trips?"

"To buy stuff for the new shop," Aneko explained, idly reaching round Jin to rub Dee-Dee's ears. He had settled across Uri's shoulders that morning and refused to move. "Their new apartment is fully furnished, but Bossman wanted to keep the stuff he chose. So all that's needed is to pick from samples for the tea shop."

"Which Quon will then buy in bulk?" Jin guessed.

"That's the plan."

"Epic."

"I know, right?"

They watched the moving men quietly for a moment.

"How's Lee?" murmured Jin.

Uri abruptly frowned. "Song says he's a little better; Shan's feverfew helped, but he won't be out of the woods for another day or so."

Aneko was nodding. "We managed to move him into Song's old room so the moving guys wouldn't bother him. It'll be a bit of a mission though, getting him to the new place." She gave her companions a rueful sidelong smile. "Quon has very thoughtfully forked out for a carriage." She sighed. "Still, it'll be nice to have him back on his feet."

* * *

"Where am I?" he asks no one.

The woods about him are sparse, interrupted by sporadic clusters of boulders or what could possibly be the worn remains of collapsed statues (some of the stones appear to have faces). The trees are huge and ancient, many of them oak and maple, and all with their autumnal coats on, filling their branches with tones of brown, fawn and yellow-gold. The ground is carpeted with the leaves they have shed, and every so often, he thinks he can hear things moving around in the leaf litter.

Then, somewhere close by, he hears familiar laughter.

Looking up, he sees a shape making its way towards him.

It's a bear, a huge brown bear and upon its back is Aneko. Her robe is covered in shifting brocade, the leaf and lily pattern dancing in the dappled light – bronze, ochre, black tea and beech, the colours of fall. She waves to him, the laughter still filling her face.

As they near, she slips from the bear's back and steps lightly though the fallen leaves. They stand two feet apart, and he can see her eyes full of affection, glinting like the panda lilies embroidered on her collar and sleeves. The green in them is completely drowned out, and they seem almost bronze.

"The storm isn't far off," she tells him gently, and takes his hands. "But as it breaks, you must remember…be true to yourself…never forget who you are."

He grips her hands, suddenly afraid. "But I don't even know who I am anymore! How do I tell?"

Her smile is somehow sad, and she puts one hand against the scared side of his face…where there is no scar.

"Oh, Zooks," she says, "you are who you've always been."

Overhead, thunder rolls across the white sky.

* * *

On the whole it was a good day for shopping. Iroh, as promised, had arrived in Quon's carriage to pick up the girls from Aneko's parent's house. When Ryo and Tia, Zuko's little worshipers, stood gazing mournfully at them from the gate, the old general did not hesitate to call them forward. The two children dashed happily inside, giggling like fiends.

Ryo, for his part, was simply glad of an outing. Tia, on the other hand, having been recently thwarted in her wishes for visiting her knight in shining armour while he was so afflicted with fever, settled with listening to his Uncle tell her stories of spirits and timeless lovers, all the way to the warehouses.

The warehouses themselves were located in the lower ring and filled to the brim with produce and stock from the artisans and crafters of the City. Quon had one of his own where he kept sample stock for new enterprises (such as new tea shops) and it was here that Iroh and the children began perusing, seeking out furnishing for the still nameless shop.

Iroh was inspecting a particularly elegant set of cream upholstered mahogany chairs when he heard Aneko call him over.

"Found something you might like, Bossman," she said. Before her were a set of freestanding silk screens, each painted with watercolour scenes of mountain tops, open skies and distant rivers. In each scene there was a magnificent pale green dragon, his yellow eyes oddly hooded as he gazed over his eerie domain.

"He looks like a ghost," Iroh said softly, still smiling.

Aneko smiled and gave him a gentle nudge. "Nah," she said slyly. "Look how full his beard is. He's just old is all."

Iroh patted his own beard and the two of them were exchanging chortling sideways looks when there was a cry of surprise followed by explosive giggling from deeper in the warehouse. Following it, they emerged around a pile of packing crates to see Uri, Ryo and Tia leaping about on a huge feather bed.

"Oh dear," said Iroh.

"Oh hell," went Aneko.

"Is something wrong?" asked Quon, appearing seemingly from nowhere.

Aneko nearly leapt screaming from her skin.

"I'm so sorry, did I startle you?" Quon said to her with his usual charm, trying to peer past her and Iroh's shoulders.

Aneko made a strangled 'hurk' noise. Quon appeared politely perplexed. Iroh was smiling nervously.

"Well," he began –

**Flump, FLIF!**

– Only to be cut off by a blizzard of white duck down.

As it settled, Uri and the kids could be seen, blinking innocently from the wreck of the mattress.

"Master Quon," Iroh said with a sigh, "meet my baker, Uri."

"Hi," piped the baker. "Nice bed."

Covered in snowy feathers, Quon began to laugh.

* * *

"Where am I?" he asks no one.

Around him the night is balmy, the air heady with the scents of summer; the dry grass, the baked ground, sap moving in warm streams through the veins of night-blooming plants. The field in which he stands is overflowing with fire lilies, their red and magenta faces open to the starlit sky despite the late hour. He can smell them too, their subtle fragrance like that of spiced wine. The field is lit not only by stars, but by a wide circle of torches, each flame standing at waist height, their staves tied with red and black banners.

Then, behind him, he hears a low growl.

Turning, he espies first Dee-Dee, prowling happily amongst the tall stalks of the lilies, and then Uri, watching him with those amber eyes.

She is clad in an _áo dài_ of deep gold and red. In the flicking torchlight it's hard to make out what is part of the tunic's flame and spark pattern or a true movement of the light itself. It's not a traditional _áo dài_ either; she wears it with a low belt to hang her old fan on and the sleeves are cut and hemmed open from elbow to wrist. There are gold cuffs on her wrists and a smirk on her face.

"I know you've been asking the big questions, _ge-ge_," she tells him. "But now its time to find the big answers."

He gives her a pained look. "There are so many, _mei-mei_…"

Her smile widens and she walks to him, the lilies sighing and parting for her as she comes.

"I know. I can give you one answer for free, though."

She reaches up and hugs him. He doesn't hesitate to return the gesture. Still smiling, she whispers into his ruined ear that is no longer ruined.

"Just remember, to us, you _are_ whole…"

* * *

"The Tea Lord."

Flat eyes gazed back at him.

"The Lord of Tea?"

More flat gazing.

"The Oolong River?"

Aneko narrowed her eyes at him.

"Ah! The Fragrant Butterfly!"

Song bit her lip.

"The Crouching Tigerdillo?"

Jin gazed beseechingly at the ceiling.

"I have it! The House of Steaming Cups."

Uri's left eyelid ticked.

"…The Tea Weevil?"

All four girls threw up their hands.

Iroh flapped. "All right, all right! They're awful, I know. I don't suppose any of you can come up with anything better?" he asked, greatly disgruntled.

Song heaved a sigh, taking in for a moment the island of calm that surrounded them while the rest of the (still nameless) tea shop was in chaos. The new furnishings were being put into place, both in the kitchen and the front of house.

"I still like the first one you picked," she said absently to the former General.

"…The Tea Lord?"

"No, no…The Jasmine Dragon."

There was a rather eloquent pause. Aneko, Jin and Uri all gave Iroh looks of great long-suffering.

"Now why," Jin said, "didn't you just tell us that one in the first place…sir?"

Once again, Iroh flapped.

* * *

It had taken then two days of pushing the ostrich-horses as hard as they could, two days of riding hard, two days of biting his lip 'til it bled to keep from crying out when his still healing insides pained him…and they had just reached the edges of the Great Divide, the fabulous network of canyons sprawling out before them, the walls of its cliffs turned hot ochre and red in the light of the setting sun.

Jet closed his eyes as he slid from the saddle and stood with one hand pressed to his ribs. Behind him, Longshot and Bee were setting about making camp for the oncoming night. He could hear his little-sister-in-arms keeping up one side of a conversation and the clash of metal as she beat tent pegs into the dry earth, while the silent archer went about putting together a fire and tripod to cook their dinner on.

They were welcome, familiar sounds, and yet for the moment they brought only a little comfort.

Jet was worried, and had been since they'd left Ba Sing Se. Song was still there; still within reach of a pair of firebenders, and for some reason in love with one of them. It could only make her more vulnerable if something were to happen…

He opened his eyes, heaved a sigh and silently took in the brilliant dusky world around him. Worrying wouldn't help her, he realized. For now he would simply have to wait, and heal, and quietly bide his time.

Still, he couldn't help wondering where she was, right now…

* * *

"Where am I?" he asks no one.

He is in a small boat, tied to the lanai of a familiar house. It stands upon strong posts driven deep into the bed of the river that flows beneath the little boat. The world is bathed in spring sunshine and for a moment he is dazzled. When he looks up to study the house, he is surprised; its roof hangs low, heavy, covered in rampantly blooming wildflowers of every elegant pastel imaginable; a literal rooftop garden. These fragile beauties are not without lovers; he can hear the bees humming with happy vigour as they peruse from flower to flower. And the smell...a hundred and one perfumes wending through the air…

He breathes deeply, a small smile beginning at one corner of his mouth, when overhead he hears a soft, faraway cry. Looking up, he sees a faint, dark shape wheeling against the warm sky. A hawk, perhaps, keening as she rides the gentle winds.

Another sound draws him; the low shush and thud of a door being slide back.

It's Song, emerging from the house to sit upon the lanai. As he climbs from the boat, he recognizes her old hanbok (or one just like it) made from new raw silk of white and peach, though this one is embroidered over the bodice and sleeves; expertly threaded images of White Dragon blossoms with their twirling white and red petals. Each blossoms' yellow centre is picked out in fabulous pale gold thread.

As she begins arranging the tea set before her, her sleeves slip back and he sees the sunlight catch on her grandmother's gold bangles and on the family seal that hangs upon a chain about around her neck. He's seen the seal only once, but remembers it – a stylized hawk, its wings spread to shelter a collapsed child.

Cautious of his welcome, he nevertheless settles opposite her and waits for her to speak. She glances up at him, smiling, and pours them both tea from a steaming pot. He politely waits for her to drink first, and then sips his own.

"It's delicious," he says, surprised.

Song smiles, almost shyly. "Its White Dragon. Uncle was right, it does make a tea so delectable –" She laughs softly. "– well, it's _almost_ heart-breaking."

He has time to utter, "White _Dragon_?" before his limbs begin to itch furiously and he feels the swelling start as the traitorous tea takes hold of him. The bone china cup drops from his fingers as his throat closes and he scrabbles against the neck of his shirt, fighting for breath.

Song gives a gasp and knocks the tea set asunder in her rush to catch him as he keels over sideways. Just as before, he collapses in her arms, gasping, the world darkening before his eyes.

"Oh, Zuko," he hears her whisper. "It's your fear of betrayal that cripples you." She sighs. "Although the reverse is also true…"

She leans forward, and presses her lips to his. As she does, the swelling fades, the itching goes, and all he can feel is her kiss.

* * *

It was dark when he woke. The last of the sun's rays had just slipped beneath the western horizon, though their warmth still lingered in the air. He felt it upon his face as the sweat on his brow cooled. A second later, a damp towel mopped it away and replaced it with a small hand. A familiar sweetness filled his nose, conjuring a reel of images, each dual-toned with tentative faith and aching sadness. And yet…

And yet when his eyes fluttered open and beheld the source of scent and emotion, his first reaction was still a smile.

Song, of course, smiled back. "Hey," she whispered.

"Hey, yourself," he echoed back and her smile widened to birth a small chuckle.

"How do you feel?"

He turned his head to press the scarred side into her palm, his lips moving against her wrist and heel of her hand. "Better." He gazed at her face for a few steadfast seconds, then let his eyes slide closed with a sigh. "Much better."

Her thumb traced the top of his scar where is arced across his forehead. "You temperature's come down, and you haven't been sleeping as restlessly…I think your fever's probably broken."

He opened his eyes again and met hers. "Really?"

She was still smiling. "We'll have to see how you get through the night, but…" The look on her face broke him a little, and he came apart gladly. "Yes, if you're still lucid by morning…you'll be out of the woods."

He watched her pick up the bowl of cool water and folded towel. Before she could wish him goodnight, he levered himself up on one elbow, feeling the blanket slip down his chest and asked, softly, earnestly, "Can you stay? Please?"

She flushed. "Zuko…"

"Just 'til I fall asleep?"

She searched his face before setting down the bowl and sitting slowly upon the edge of his bed. He subsided back against his pillows and watched her with half lidded eyes. He felt muzzy, halfway back to oblivion already. Song reached out and with the tips of her fingers skipping his forehead, brushing a few wayward scraps of hair back out of his eyes. There was that look again, and Zuko realized he'd never wanted to kiss someone more in his life.

But lethargy gripped him, leaving him limp as a noodle, and he could only watch the pale oval of her face, marveling silently at the pink bow of her mouth, the wide set of her dark eyes as exhaustion took its toll and he was sucked down into sleep.

One thought circled his brain.

_In the morning…I'll kiss her in the morning…_

Before he went under, he felt her lips on his forehead, then nothing.


	9. Ch5: The Jasmine Dragon

**Chapter Five – The Jasmine Dragon**

_The wind combed dark, sightless fingers through her hair, whispered in its cool voice, belled the skirt and sleeves of hanbok and pressed damp kisses of lake-spray to her cheeks and forehead. Overhead the gibbous moon rode high and bright. Song closed her eyes and basked._

_Footsteps upon the boards of the ferry deck. Only a little familiar… She opened her eyes and glanced over her shoulder, one elbow lifting from the railing with the movement._

_Jet smiled as he settled beside her, that ridiculous grass straw twirling between his teeth before he gazed up at the blanket of stars overhead. The smile was contagious, and she felt one grow on her own lips before she too looked upward._

"_So," he murmured. "What's a pretty girl like you doing with an old man and a guy like Lee?"_

_She gave him a sidelong look. "Surviving, mostly. They're the reason I'm still alive."_

"_Really?"_

_Song nodded, and quietly told him the tale. How the boy and his uncle had arrived at the village clinic, the dinner at her house…even how initially, 'Lee' had taken their ostrich horse._

_Jet was indignant. "He stole from you?"_

_She gazed out over the dark water, eyes quiet and thoughtful. "Yes, but he came back." Her next words shook a little. "When the raiders came."_

_Jet's face darkened. His teeth savagely ground the end of the straw. "Raiders," he muttered. "I know about raiders…"_

"_They would have killed me…but Lee and Mushi rescued me from my burning house. Lee even went back and got my treasure chest for me. He braved the flames, just so I would still have my legal papers and keepsakes."_

_Jet nodded, himself looking thoughtful. "He…he sounds like a pretty__ honourable__ kind of guy."_

If only you knew…_ "He is. But he hasn't had an easy time of it."_

"_None of us have. It's why we're here. This is our…second chance, I guess." She saw him turn his gaze back to the sheltered areas of the lower deck. Zuko was there, talking quietly with Iroh._

"_I know," she murmured. "We've lost almost everything. But my father always said that the greatest people in the world are often the ones who have risen from nothing."_

_She smiled, sloe-eyed and enigmatic. Jet realized just exactly how beautiful she could be._

"_One day," she continued. "He'll be one of those great ones."_

_

* * *

_

Looking back, she really should have seen the signs.

All of them.

And yet, there she was, completely taken by surprise…

* * *

Song emerged from her room into the small corridor that divided the living room and kitchen from the three bedrooms and bathroom of their new apartment. Her hair was still damp and she felt warmed by both the clinging steam of her hot bath and the morning sunlight that shafted in from the corridor's single window.

Beyond, she could hear Iroh humming as he cooked. The smell of porridge reached her, filtering under the sliding door; jook, he'd called it last night, measuring out the ingredients ready for that morning. She could pick out the warm, mealy smell of oats; the richness of almonds, a ripe sweetness that meant raisins and the floral shades of liquid honey.

She lingered in the sunshine, her hair loose and drying quickly over her shoulders. Combing her fingers through it, she stood meditatively listening to the birdsong outside, looking up only when she heard Zuko's bedroom door slide back and the boy himself emerge on carefully steady feet. His clothes were clean; the uniform the wait staff would be wearing for Iroh's big opening at the Jasmine Dragon. He looked good in it, though he would have to do something about the bedhead…

Looking up he caught her eye and gave her a rueful, lopsided smile. Her heart melted a little (honestly, when didn't it?) and she straightened, pushed her hair back and returning the smile. "Feeling better?"

And then he was standing in front of her, barely a foot of space between them. The smile curled further. "Much."

For some reason, perhaps his proximity, or the fact that she could feel his eyes making a careful study of her features, Song found herself flushing.

"Song?"

"Mmm?"

"I…I wanted to tell you…I wanted to say…" He floundered for a moment. "I want to say, that…that I'm sorry." She looked up at him then, eyes wide, and it was his turn to look away with the tops of his cheeks turning steadily red. "I didn't mean what I said, the other day, when you heard me talking to Uncle…about the Avatar."

That same frustration rose up, showing in the lines of his face, in his eyes and jaw. Yet as the same time there was an earnestness that reminded her strongly of Jet. "I mean, I didn't mean it the way it must have sounded. You know we'd never leave you behind, right? Uncle and I...whatever happens –"

He was standing very, very close to her now; she could almost feel his breath on her face.

"– whatever happens, we'll always bring you with us. We'll – I'll always look out you." He crushed his eyes closed for a moment. When they opened, "Everything I've done…"

Song felt soft warmth steal over her. She gazed at him, eyes melting brown, drinking him in as he was in this moment – muted, stirring fire; anxious, earnest, heartfelt, hopeful, and with that hope shining out of him like a light. It lit up the gold of his eyes, and she imagined young dragons must have had eyes very like his.

"I know, Zuko," she murmured.

He smiled again, quietly, full of some new emotion that caught her breath and…

And then he was kissing her.

Once again, sunlight held them.

Far away, the birds sang.

He smelt like sage and warmth and cotton.

She was floating and…

Words failed.

* * *

Aneko stood before the Jasmine Dragon's open doors.

Beyond she could see the screen set she had picked out with Iroh, the new tables, the new chairs, and sitting in rows upon the back counter, the new kettles and pots and teacups…

She twisted the sleeves of her new uniform and wondered for the thirtieth time if her hairpins were going to hold.

It was just…it was so _big_. So much bigger than Pao's pokey little tea shop, where she and Uri had been the big fish in their wee pond. Now, she was a senior member of a still rather select team…but it didn't feel the same, or stop her from worrying.

What if the other staff weren't how they had presented themselves in the interviews? What if they were cruel? What if they were cruel to _Zuko_? What if Uri found out? What if she incinerated someone by accident, in a fit of temper? What if she incinerated the _kitchen_ by accident, in a fit of temper? What if Iroh got stage fright and fouled the tea? What if _she_ got stage fright and _dropped_ the tea? And what if –?

"BOO!" went Uri.

"HURK!" went Aneko.

Uri collapsed on the Dragon's steps howling with laughter. Aneko rounded on her.

"You!" she snarled, "I'm going to kill you!"

They were still squealing and grappling with one another when the others arrived.

* * *

"So, big day…"

"Big day."

Zuko smiled at Song. Song smiled at Zuko. She blushed, and so did he, but it didn't stop him from taking her hand and asking,

"Shan won't mind if you're a little late for work? And you'll be back –?"

"Yes, I'll be back for lunch, and no, he won't mind."

_Not if he knows what's good for him,_ she thought (Song, under influence of the collective tartness of Uri and Jin was growing a spine, or at least the beginnings of one.)

He saw her to the door as the first customers began to trickle in, his fingers still curled around hers. She'd never seen him smile so much…

They paused upon the steps. A little confused, she watched him glance furtively about, mouth coiling slyly – and there, again, a kiss, this one quick and secret and half-laughing. She left him grinning in the sunlight and tripped off into the crowd, some part of her turning silently, spinning first warm, then hot with something she had not felt in months.

Part of her was home.

* * *

Below the window of what was once the Dan Family Pai Sho House a Dai Li agent knelt out of sight. In his low voice he murmured the following,

"She is here in the City, with her two lieutenants. The governor's daughter is impatient to spring the trap. The acrobat seems complacent, content to wait for her word."

Within the empty shell of the house's central room sunlight shafted in great dusty bars. Dust motes, caught like tiny gold flies in diaphanous amber, drifted in the hot, airless space. In the sharp-cast shadows between these bars of light, stood the Fox, mouthless face glowing out from the knife edged dark. Slowly, it lifted.

"They are baiting you," they stated. "She wants the Dai Li, and so she let her cohorts be overheard. She'll do a deal with Long Feng, and draw the carpet from beneath his feet. Watch."

There was a pause as the agent processed this. His mouth tightened, as did the scar down his cheek. "There's more. The Avatar is still absent. If the princess springs her trap, if she takes the City…"

"Then we have one chance. And one person who perhaps…"

The Fox's blank face tilted to the east. To the middle ring.

"…perhaps will save us."

To the agent they murmured, "Go. I have work to do."

* * *

Part of him was home…

"Gad Zooks," Aneko said coming over and leaning one elbow on his shoulder. "You gonna wipe that silly smile off your mug and help me run some tea?"

He could only smile at her, and she could only do the same.

"Let's get to work."

And so the day slipped away in a happy blur; Zuko and Aneko dove into the rhythms of greeting customers, taking orders and serving tea. They darted between tables and throngs of customers, quick on their feet, avoiding near head-on collisions by a hairsbreadth and snickering breathlessly at each other as they side-stepped. When he passed her, Zuko heard Aneko singing softly under her breath as she worked:

"_I've got the world on a string, sittin' on a rainbow, got that string around my finger_…" trailing off into low laughter.

Meanwhile, Uri, despite her lack of height and age compared to the other three bakers Quon had installed in the Dragon's kitchen, was making her presence felt, commanding her co-workers the way her mother must be even now commanding the firebenders of the Southern Fleet. Every so often he would discern her barked commands as he passed by the door to the kitchen.

"_No_, you ninnies, _minced_ chicken, not chopped! Look, like this." and "Wei! Is that custard I smell burning?" or "Where are those pork buns – oh, thanks Qua-Mei."

And all the while, Iroh brewed tea, smiling brighter than the sun itself. He was in his element, hands flying across his benches, pouring piping water, measuring out weights of tea, timing brewing pots, singing out in his warm, rasping baritone for "Nephew, two ginger and a blue rose blend for table six!" The smile barely left his face.

The morning passed, slipping seamlessly into the lull between midday and the first hour of the afternoon.

The staff of the Jasmine Dragon paused.

They breathed.

Uri began a restock of the kitchen. Iroh began a restock of his teas. The wait staff cleared tables and reset them. Zuko and Aneko were putting out the four small terrace tables when a familiar figure came around the corner.

"Jin!"

* * *

Lee asked how her day had been.

Lee pushed her chair in for her.

Lee asked her if she would like tea.

Lee bustled off with a smile to get her a pot of the house specialty blend jasmine.

Jin stared at Aneko and Uri with great shock and bewilderment.

"What the heck? Seriously! What happened? Where was I?"

Uri threw her little hands up. "We don't know! He came out of his fever last night, and he was just –" She flapped her hands towards the interior of the Jasmine Dragon. "Like this!" she finished.

Aneko nodded. "Song mentioned he'd been…perky, all morning." She stuck out her lower lip and blew her bangs out of her eyes. "He hasn't been cranky once. Even when we were busy."

"It's kinda freaky," Uri added.

Aneko gave her a flat look. Uri shrugged. Jin continued to be bewildered.

"It's just…so weird. He's always been the broody guy…"

"Here's the tea."

'Broody guy' was back, and he'd brought lotus seed buns.

The light lunch that followed was pleasant, but strange to say the least. The four of them sat around the small table, their respective aprons slung over the backs of their chairs. Jin watched as the boy smiled, the way he threw back his head as he laughed at Uri's quips, or Aneko's dry asides. This was not the awkward boy she had had a single disastrous date with…

"Song?"

And there was the girl he should have gone on his date with.

* * *

Song slid into her chair, feeling drunk on sunlight, and summer, and…were there even words for this? This feeling? She luxuriated selfishly for a few moments. For now there was could be no war, and for now her mother was not dead, her father was safe at home, and the Fire Nation was not battling even now against her country. For this moment…for this moment they were only Lee and Song and their friends. She sipped passionflower and peach tea and gazed at her friends, her sisters and her…

"Jin?"

The girl's head came up quickly, tensing, green eyes tightening…and yet a moment later she gave Song a small smile. "What's up?"

The young healer looked uncertain. "You seem…quiet today. Everything okay?"

Jin smiled again and gave one of those casual one-shouldered shrugs which gave nothing away at all. "It's fine. I'm fine. It's just been…" She paused, looking a little distant again. "It's just been a busy day, you know? I've had a lot to do, a lot to think about doing."

Zuko, who had been listening with half an ear, now interjected, "You won't get in trouble, being away for so long?"

His genuine concern made her pause before she ruefully smiled and shook her head. "Mom knows how important today is. To everyone."

To their collective delight, she stood and raised her teacup. "To the Jasmine Dragon," she toasted.

"To Uncle," Zuko added softly, and Song found herself taking his free hand. As their eyes met, the other girls cheered loudly, "To Uncle!"

Inside, Iroh smiled and sipped his tea.

* * *

"Excuse me?"

Aneko looked up from clearing one of the terrace tables and met one of the bluest sets of eyes she'd ever seen.

The girl must have been about fourteen. She was obviously Water Tribe; the characteristic cerulean eyes seen in many of that clan combined with the rich hair, warmly toned skin and classic sea foam patterned tunic were a dead give away.

The lemur was different though. It blinked its wide eyes at her from the girl's shoulder, the light showing faintly though the membranes of its winged forelimbs.

"Do you have a table for two free?" the girl continued, smiling.

Aneko smiled easily back. "Sure, follow me. There's a really nice one by our western windows."

As she led the girl – plus lemur – inside, the noise of the tea house engulfed them. Over it, she could hear Zuko, and when she looked she saw him calling an order cheerfully over his shoulder to Iroh.

"Uncle, I need two jasmine, one green and one lychee!"

As Iroh called back that he was brewing as fast as he could, Aneko turned back to the girl…only to see her blue clad back and dark braid bobbing as she ran pell-mell back down the plaza, the lemur shrieking and wheeling after her.

Aneko blinked in abject surprise. Then she scowled, tray clamped militantly to her side.

"How rude," she said, drawing herself up with indignation and glowering as the Water Tribe girl disappeared around the corner.

Zuko had evidently noticed her expression. He sidled over with his now laden tray balanced expertly on one splayed palm and nudged her with the opposite elbow. "Why the face? What's the matter?"

Aneko gave an irritated snort. "You just missed her," she said, gesturing to the plaza with her own tray, "but there was this girl. Ducked out and ran before I'd even got her to her table. Not even a 'sorry, gotta fly', just bolted."

Zuko looked quizzical. "Weird."

"That's what I thought."

It was only much later that she realized she'd forgotten to tell him about the flying lemur.

* * *

The kitchen already cleaned down and packed away, Uri spent the last half hour of closing helping the front of house staff wipe down the Dragon's many tables and carefully stack the elegant chairs against the walls. She and Aneko were bringing in the terrace tables when the Imperial messenger showed up.

"Is Mister Mushy here? The famous tea maker?"

"Its Mu-_shi_," Aneko and Uri chorused, the former with great longsuffering, the latter with instant irritation.

The messenger blinked at them then said tentatively, "Aah, of course, Mushi…is he here?"

'Mushi' was retrieved and an official Imperial scroll put in his (faintly trembling) hands. Uri, wide-eyed between the protective bookends of Aneko and Zuko, noted the tension in her friends' faces, the wariness that filled the stance and gaze of the man she secretly called Grandfather.

Then the seal was broken, wax fragments falling upon the newly swept floor, and Iroh's face was alight with new and beautiful joy. "I…I can't believe it," he breathed.

"What is it?" Zuko demanded, some of that familiar temper coming back. "Uncle?"

The Dragon of the West grinned at them. "We have been invited to serve tea to the Earth King."

Uri burst, scaring the living daylights out of Aneko and Zuko by leaping a foot in the air and whooping at the top of her not insubstantial lungs.

At the end of the plaza, Jin and Song watched, nonplussed as Uri began dancing in circles with Iroh while Zuko and Aneko clung to each other's arms and laughed at the afternoon sky.

* * *

He had forgotten how quietly they could move.

Prayers finished, incense burnt, Shan opened his eyes and climbed awkwardly to his feet. Some of the fragrant ash remained in the air, laden with the scent of sea salt and lavender. Then the breeze came up, and he heard the telltale sound of a cloak snapping in the wind. He turned, as quick as he was able and drew his breath sharply.

A Dai Li agent stood at the edge of the rotunda.

There was a knife scar across his right cheek and a quick, anxious look in his eyes. Slowly, he held out a scroll, sealed with a knot of thick, white wax. It was delicately sculpted, and without looking closely, Shan knew it would be in the likeness of a lotus blossom.

There was a small note glued to the scroll's outer: "She has sprung her trap. It is up to him now. All we can do is prepare." It was signed simply, 'Fox'.

Shan regained his voice. "My orders?"

"In there."

He took the scroll and went to break the seal.

"Wait until you're alone. Memorize them then destroy them. Leave no traces. Be ready by tonight."

He nodded, looked up…

And was faced with empty air.

* * *

**AN: **(spirit noises) Oooh-weee-oooooh...so, how's that intrigue treatin' ya?


	10. Ch6: Signs of Separation

**AN:** I know I keep doing this to you guys, and honestly, I don't know why. I think its called growing. But for some reason, I'm over - so very over - writing Avatar fanfiction. This fic will be finished...but I don't hold much hope for the sequels. God I'm such a tool. Also, a little drunk...

* * *

**Chapter Six – Signs of Separation**

"_I said _no_."_

_Song watched the hurt enter Jet's dark eyes just as the temper entered Zuko's brilliant ones. _Too similar,_ she thought, _too stubborn_._

"_Fine, have it your way."_

_They watched Zuko stride away, Jet bitterly, and Song turned back to the others, a sigh and an apology on her lips._

"_I'm sorry guys, he's just –"_

_In a dizzy instant, Jet's hand was gripping her wrist, fingers white-knuckled. The pain was blunt and immediate. Dread pooling in her stomach, Song followed his gaze. Zuko stood berating Iroh, who wore a woebegone expression. A teacup lay on the stone floor. The liquid spreading around it was still steaming._

_Oh _no_…_

"_Song," Jet was hissing urgently. "Song, don't go. Don't go with them, they're _firebenders_! They've lied to you; you're in danger, you –"_

Know exactly where this is going.

_With uncharacteristic violence she wrenched her wrist from his grip and glowered at him, feeling fierce for the first time in what felt like an age._

"No_," she snapped, and ignored the way he flinched. "No, I'm not in danger. Not from them. They've never, _ever_ hurt me or treated me disrespectfully, or lied to me!"_

_No strictly true, but…_

"_All that they've done…they've done to protect me."_

_Still filled with bubbling emotion, she stalked away, rubbing her wrist and hoping she wouldn't bruise. But later, as they boarded the train, the rage had boiled away to anxiety, and with good reason; a chance, a random glance, and she spotted them. One carriage down, through a brief gap in the seething crowd, there were Jet and Longshot and Smellerbee. Jet was watching them – watching Zuko – his dark eyes burning, even as the crowd closed around them._

_Fear rippled through Song, and without thinking, she reached down and gripped Zuko's hand. He frowned down at her._

"_What's wrong?"_

_But all she could do was wordlessly shake her head and shiver as the train pulled away, towards the Impenetrable City._

_

* * *

_

They sat upon the steps of the Jasmine Dragon, an untidy gaggle of girls cluttered around a small teapot on an equally small burner, casually drinking tea and ruining their dinner with the leftovers from the Dragon's opening day. It was a truly blissful way to spend an afternoon.

Aneko stretched her arms up over her head, sighing, and murmured, "Do you guys remember what he was like, when he first got here?"

The other girls looked at her, varying smiles on their faces. There was never any question as to who 'he' was. It was Jin who spoke first.

"He was so awkward…didn't have a clue when it came to girls. I wondered," she added, turning to look at Aneko and Song, "how he managed working with you two."

"Badly," Aneko put in, then laughed.

Two steps up and to her left, Song smiled into her teacup and said, ever so softly, "He struggled, every day, but he never gave up."

"Not without a fight," Uri added, rolling her eyes as she remembered the furtive training sessions between herself, Zuko and Iroh. Oh, the explosions…it was a miracle nothing had burnt down.

Her companions laughed, all thinking along similar lines. As they did, far away, a wall was blown out in the side of the imperial palace, emitting one firebender when there should have been two.

Zuko had indeed changed, but as the girls were to discover, he hadn't changed that much.

He was still a stubborn idiot.

* * *

"You're so dramatic. What are you going to do, challenge me to Agni Kai?"

"Yes! I challenge you!" _And this time…this time I'll win…_

"No thanks…"

_No!_

_

* * *

_

"I am sooo tired."

Aneko gave Uri a sidelong look before rolling her eyes and bumping her shoulder against the other girl's as they ambled through the streets towards their apartment.

"Me too," she said softly. "I wonder if it'll be as busy again tomorrow…"

Uri shot her a flat look. "Are you kidding me? People will know about the place now; it'll be twice as busy." She moaned again. "Ohh and we start doing nights next week…I'm doomed, doomed! I'll have rice flour under my nails forever!"

A brief tickle fight broke out when Uri waggled the offended (and offending) digits in Aneko's face. When they had broken apart and stood giggling and gasping a safe three feet from each other, Aneko, between pants, heard an odd noise. It came from a roof several buildings behind them and was moving steadily back the way they had come. A rattle, several uneven clicks, the clinking of ceramic on ceramic…a grunt and a soft impact, and then the noises began again.

Trying to pinpoint the source, Aneko thought that perhaps…perhaps it sounded like someone running over the roofs…

At that moment, Uri made a soft sound of surprise and Aneko turned in time to see Iroh barreling down the street towards them at a speed rather shocking for a man of his age and stature, steam spilling from his nostrils and a look of grim determination setting his features.

"Bossman?"

The former General said nothing, simply charged between the girls, leaving them squeaking in surprise as his passing threw up a small cloud of beige dust.

"Was that –?"

"I think –"

"Holy Shu –!"

"I think we'd better –"

"Go, yes, yes, I'm right behind you!"

They took off, pelting after Iroh only to stop short, shocked and horrified, when they came around the corner.

Standing in the street, facing off against a grimacing Iroh was a –

"Dai Li!" gasped Aneko.

"Doomed!" wailed Uri.

"Mud!" crowed Aneko, eyes fixed upon a wide and still spreading puddle of it where a down pipe had come loose.

The edge of the puddle touched the agent's feet…and Aneko stepped into a stance, throwing her hands up joyously while simultaneously throwing the startled agent into a wall with an infant tsunami of sludge. He hit the wall, very nearly bounced, and lay in the stinking filth with a wide crack spreading from the centre of his helmet to both front and rear brims.

There was a moment of echoing quiet, the only sounds that of water running from the down pipe and the distant, dulled roar of temporarily absent foot traffic.

Very slowly, Iroh dropped out of his stance, and turned to face them. If the girls hadn't been so stunned, they might have found his expression funny; his mouth open in blatant shock.

Uri was the first to recover. She twinkled the fingers of one hand at the General.

"Um, hi. Fancy seeing you here."

* * *

"Let me get this straight," Aneko said, panting a little as she jogged steadily beside Uri and Iroh, the latter with the bound and gagged Dai Li agent across his shoulders. "Zuko's nutjob little sister is here in Ba Sing Se and secretly using the Dai Li – for whatever reason – and when you went to serve the Earth King tea, not only was there no Earth King, but Azula was there, and she managed to capture Zuko?"

"Yes," came the succinct response.

"Oh boy…"

Iroh cut her a sidelong look. "You don't believe me?"

"Oh I believe you; it's just that my sense of reality is struggling to catch up." Aneko glowered at the horizon as they ran ever closer to the upper ring of the City. "I mean, I know about the war. I'm not one of the bleating sheep-pigs that were born here believing they were safe from the world. So, two fugitive firebenders I can understand; I can even wrap my mind around then being the brother and banished son of the Firelord…but his scheming, twisty, hella-awesome-bender daughter? Here, running my home's cultural protection society? That's pretty epically…"

"Off the map?" Uri offered.

"Yeah…for me anyway. Although, strangely, Zooks getting himself captured doesn't surprise me at all…speaking off," she added, eyes narrowing. "Why are Uri and I still here?"

Uri stopped running. "What?"

Aneko and Iroh were half a step behind her. Aneko sighed. "Don't be angry okay, but seriously, we shouldn't be here."

If looks could have killed, (and Uri could've bent lightning with her eyes) Aneko would have been a pile of smoldering ashes. "Are you saying we shouldn't help?" she snarled.

"No, I'm saying we _can't_." Aneko shook her head slowly. "It may have escaped your attention, Uri (although I don't see how), but we pretty much suck. I have the combat training of your average fig and can only bend mud, which, it being summer, is in very short supply; and even if you do have the training –"

"I do, thank you very much."

"Even so, all you can do is throw sparks and breathe hot air. What would you do in a fight exactly? Bake for them until they lapsed into a collective food-coma?" She ran one had through her already distrait and muddy hair. "It's not that I don't want to, but we'd be more hindrance than help. There _has_ to be someone more capable who can rescue Zuko."

"And get Azula out of here," Iroh added. "She cannot be allowed to subjugate the Earth Kingdom capital."

"Exactly. I mean, if we could just alert the authorities…tell the police…"

"Oh come _on_, 'Neko," Uri burst out. "She's got the Dai Li dancing like her personal puppet army and the Dai Li _own_ the police; they _are_ the policing force around here."

"But we _know_ them," Aneko appealed. "We _know_ the guys down at the forty-third lower ring precinct. They're our neighbours, our _friends_. Surely…"

"Surely sure they'd laugh their butts off when we try and convince them their country has been at war with mine for the past one hundred years," Uri responded sourly. "And even if that works, do you really think they'd go in for helping a firebender, her mudbending roommate and the General who once tried to take this City over rescue the _banished Fire Prince_? No, they'd throw Iroh and I in chains, try and go after Azula and get themselves nailed.

"Face it, 'Neko, we have to go. It's us or no one."

"That's not necessarily true," Iroh interjected mildly.

Uri and Aneko turned from each other to blink at him.

"Who?" Aneko asked softly.

* * *

"You've got company."

"Zuko!"

_I don't believe it…it's __**her**__…_

_

* * *

_

Iroh did know someone. And yet, his waitress and baker failed to be impressed.

"The _Avatar,_ for spirits sake," Uri muttered.

She and Aneko were loitering upon said person's porch while Iroh was inside attempting to convince said person to assist them. Between them sat the Dai Li agent, still bound and gagged, and now coming round. As the dazed look faded from his eyes, horror took its place. Neither girl could find the emotional energy or motivation to feel sorry for him.

"I know," Aneko chimed in. "Gee, they've only been hunting his sorry butt across the world for the past _how_ many months now? We are beyond screwed." She put her cheek on her fist, disconsolately watching a small flock of sparrowkeets take noisy dust bathes on the footpath.

It was then that the door opened and Iroh emerged with three kids; a Water Tribe boy, a girl in an apprentice earthbender's tunic and…

And the Avatar.

While Aneko made introductions – "Hi, I'm Aneko, this is Uri, nice to meetcha." – Uri scrutinized him closely. Even as young as he was, probably no more than thirteen, he was taller than her (though that wasn't hard). He still had that gawky look of children not long into adolescence, though he hid it well, moving with an almost inherent grace which she put down to his bending training. What really drew the eye to him, however were his airbender's tattoos, the bold lines of blue showing coolly against the warmth of his skin, and his own eyes; large, grey and at this point tightened at the corners with some inner turmoil that made Uri instinctively nervous.

Then she recognized the little earthbender and forgot all about being nervous.

"Holy Ancestors," she said faintly. "It's the Blind Bandit."

The Bandit's milky eyes turned to fix unerringly on Uri's left ear. "You know me?" The suspicion in her voice was sharp.

"Well, yeah," Uri piped, to the shock of her boss and her best friend. "I was at Earth Rumble this year. You totally rocked! Well, up until that little twerp in the stupid hat showed up. But I totally think you should have won that round!"

The Water Tribe boy suddenly guffawed into one fist while tiny Toph Bei Fong, the only person present who was shorter than Uri, rewarded the firebender with a huge grin before turning and squarely punching the blushing Avatar in the shoulder. "Hear that, Twinkle Toes?"

The Avatar nodded, rubbing his shoulder, then hastily changed the subject. "Um, shouldn't we talk to the guy…?"

Toph pulled 'a few sweet moves' and neatly trapped the agent between slabs of stone. Iroh removed the agent's gag, showing the scar down his left cheek. To their collective surprise, he didn't even take convincing.

"Azula and Long Feng are plotting a coup. They're going to overthrow the Earth King."

Aneko's hazel eyes hardened. Uri reached out and put one small hand on her friend's arm. Beside them, the Water Tribe boy abruptly became a warrior, pointing his machete at the agent.

"My sister!" he snarled. "Where are they keeping Katara?"

"In the crystal catacombs of old Ba Sing Se, deep beneath the palace. But," he added, watching them with a face caught between caution and earnestness, "you should know, she knows you'll come for the girl. She'll be waiting for you."

Something dark came into Aang's eyes. Uri felt a thrill of true fear move up her spine and the day suddenly felt colder.

"I'm counting on it," he murmured.

* * *

"You're a terrible person, you know that? ‌ Always following us, hunting the Avatar, trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? ‌ You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood."

_No, no, no…it's not true. Jet's not right. I'm not a monster. I never killed children, I never killed anyone…!_

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"I don't‌!? How dare you! You have no _idea_ what this war has put me through. Me _personally_. The Fire Nation _took my mother_ away from me."

_Oh no…no, just like Song. _Just_ like Song._

"I'm sorry. That's something we have in common."

* * *

"Well, whaddya know," Toph told them, smiling. "There is an ancient city down there, but it's deep."

Aneko watched the younger girl with interest. "How did you do that?"

"I'm made of awesome," Toph said, her smile graduating into a grin. "I can feel the vibrations that carry through the earth. It's how I see." She waggled one small earthy foot at Aneko.

"Wish I could do that," she whispered, half-smiling.

"Why can't you learn?"

"It's a little complicated…"

Toph 'watched' the older girl, head tilted to one side, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Toph?" Aang called from beside the bison (whom Uri was currently cooing to while attempting to hug one of his massive legs.) "Need help with the tunnel?"

"You wish, Twinkletoes."

Aneko watched as the Bandit slipped effortlessly into a stance and pushed down, almost seeming to throw her meager weight against the earth below her. With a crash it gave way, forming the beginnings of a tunnel.

_I want to be able to do that…_and the intensity of the wanting surprised her.

"We should split up. Aang, you go with Iroh to look for Katara and the angry jerk," Sokka was saying. "No offense," he added to Iroh.

"None taken," Iroh said while Uri detached herself from Appa and padded over, scrowly face firmly in place.

_Uh oh…_

"And I'll go with Toph to warn the Earth King about Azula's coup –"

"What about me and 'Neko?" Uri asked.

Sokka darted a look between the little firebender and the General. "Uh, so Toph…"

"Let's go, Snoozles."

The two of them beat a hasty retreat towards the palace proper. Aneko sighed. Aang was watching the two firebenders square off with alarm. He looked questioningly at Aneko, who rolled her eyes.

"What about me, Iroh?"

Iroh gazed at Uri silently for a moment. "Song is alone," he said eventually. "She is alone, unaware of the situation…and I would have her remain so for as long as possible."

Both girls did an abrupt double take. "What?"

Iroh closed his amber eyes briefly then opened them. He looked older for a moment, tired. "She is important, dear, to all of us. I would not have her worry…" His gaze sharpened, eyes narrowing. "I would have her protected."

"Who from?" Aang asked, clearly bewildered.

"Azula," Uri said through her teeth.

"What threat would she be to Song, apart from the obvious oppression and conquering side of things?" Aneko asked.

"Song is important to Zuko, and Azula is…creative."

"How do you know all this about her?" Aang queried.

"I went to school with her," Uri muttered. She flung herself forward suddenly, hugging Iroh. "Be safe. And keep them safe."

"I will." He looked past Uri, met Aneko's hazel eyes. "Be brave, my girls. Today is a big day, and it's not over yet."

* * *

She put her hand on his scar, and with his eyes closed, he wished it were someone else.

_Where are you, Song? What are you doing, right now?_

_

* * *

_

Song was worried.

It was little over an hour since she had gotten home from the clinic, Shan sending her off to be home to celebrate with her adopted family.

Her family, who weren't home yet.

It had bothered Song though; the healing master had been so tense, clearly worried over something that he would or could not tell his apprentice about. Song had tried to keep a clear head, to keep calm, and had mostly succeeded, but with Jin having been so…_distracted_ today at lunch…

The sun was sinking, and they weren't home yet.

A primitive part of her mind was twitching and telling her that something was wrong. Without really thinking what she was doing, she got to her feet, leaving her tea to go cold on the table and padded into Zuko's room.

She went for his spare pair of boots, but what she sort wasn't there. She searched for a few more minutes before giving up and going to her own room to find some other measure of comfort.

It was when she opened her treasure chest, the cherry wood glinting in the fading light, that she saw it.

There, resting upon the family documents and her grandmother's neatly folded wedding veil, between the story scrolls and her mother's betrothal gifts, surrounded by the scattered wooden animals…

…was Zuko's pearl dagger.

* * *

"Zuko, no! Think about what you are doing!"

"I'm sorry Uncle." _So very sorry._ "But I have to do this. This is the only way I can help her…"

He gazed back at the older man, and somehow, they both knew he wasn't talking about Azula.

Iroh's eyes went dead, and Zuko looked away.

* * *

Slowly, with infinite care, she lifted the dagger from the chest; touching the beautifully tooled handle, the inset pearls…she drew it from its sheath to read the inscription –

_Never give up without a fight._

– And blinked in surprise as a slip of paper fluttered down onto her lap. It must have been slipped in next to the blade. She unfolded it, read the two inscribed words…

Song's hand went to her mouth. As she closed her eyes, a single tear slipped down her left cheek, catching the dying light once before falling away.

* * *

"I thought you had changed!"

"I have changed!"

_I have, I have changed, I changed for her, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I have to do this, I have to have the power…_

_I have to keep her safe._

_

* * *

_

The living room door slid back and Ai Li stilled as she caught the expression on her daughter's face.

"Mom," Jin began softly, and then seemed unable to go on.

Ai Li looked down, lips parting in muted shock as her gaze came to rest on the scroll case in Jin's left hand. With dread, she looked to her right hand. Peaking through Jin's fingers was the head of a tiny jade fox.

_You knew this day was coming._

Ai Li closed her eyes, clenched her fists, fought down the pain.

When her eyes opened, she smiled at her daughter and stood, murmuring, "I'll help you pack, sweetheart."

* * *

"I thought you said you knew a shortcut," Uri accused.

Aneko's mouth thinned. "I _did_ know a shortcut, but evidently the earthbenders in this city have no consideration for public walkways."

They trotted in silence for a few minutes. First Uri, then Aneko slowed, stopping to gaze back in the direction of the palace.

"Aneko?"

"Yeah?"

"I have a bad feeling."

"Me too. Let's run, okay?"

"Yeah."

Together, they bolted towards the lower ring. Or at least, they bolted until they came around a corner and collided with someone in a traveler's cloak.

After the resulting embarrassed scuffle, and once everyone was back on their feet, the traveler pulled back the hood on their cloak.

"Jin!"

"Is that a travel bag?"

Aneko frowned, perplexed. "Going somewhere?"

Jin's face was serious, taunt lines surrounding a mouth that was more apt at smiling and tensing usually mischievous eyes. The effect was unnerving to say the least.

She looked like a cornered predator.

"We all are," she murmured.

"What?"

"I'll explain in a bit. In the meantime we have to get to Song."

As their friend darted into the gathering night, Aneko looked to Uri.

"Bad feeling?"

"Epic bad."

* * *

"Song?"

The voice was muffled, a shout transversing a door and two walls to reach her. With a start, she came back to herself; breath filling her body, sparks going off behind her eyes. The light was almost completely gone now, the sun having set and its last rays touching nothing but the underbellies of the lowest hanging clouds.

"Oh," she whispered, and climbed quickly to her feet, rushing for the apartment door. In the unlit dark, she almost caught her feet twice on the living room rug.

Waiting for her, grim and worried faces all, were Aneko, Jin and Uri.

"What..?" She registered that Jin was wearing traveling clothes. "What's going on? Jin, where are you going?"

"Apparently," Uri interjected, "we're all going somewhere, but Jin has to explain first."

Jin's expression hardened, but it was only as they seated themselves at Song's table that she began to speak. When she did, it wasn't much, but it definitely made her point.

"The Earth Kingdom has fallen."

"_What_?"

"Are you _insane_?"

"What do you mean, _fallen_?"

Jin sighed heavily. "I have friends working up at the palace. Not even an hour ago I got a message from one of them telling me the Earth King has disappeared, as have the Council of Five and that…that there's been a coup. Princess Azula of the Fire Nation is here, and she's just killed the Avatar."

Song felt something twist inside her, writhing in pain and building horror.

"_I know you don't think there's any hope left in the world, but there is hope. The Avatar has returned…"_

"_I know…"_

Jin's jade eyes were focused on her, apology in every line of her face, which didn't make sense; she didn't know anything, not about Zuko or Iroh or how they could possibly be linked to the Fire Princess…

"She did it with the help of her brother –"

_No…_

"Prince Zuko."

_No!_

Jin's eyes had tightened with such hurt. Either side of her, Uri and Aneko might as well have been statues.

"I know who they are and who you are, Uri" Jin whispered.

Uri flinched.

"I know what you've all been keeping from me, though I don't blame you." She closed her green stone eyes. "It was Zuko who rescued you from the fire, Song. It was Zuko who helped you fight off those bullies, Aneko. Uri, it was Zuko who kept your secret…

"And it was Zuko, who just helped destroy the last hope for peace this world has."

_Everything I've done…_

She opened her eyes, gazed at them one by one.

…_they've done to protect me._

"Get your things. We have to get out of this city."

Somewhere deep in Song's chest, the writhing thing went still and died.


	11. Epilogue: Beginning of the End

**Epilogue – Beginning of the End**

"_Eeow! This tea is nothing more than hot leaf juice!"_

_Of all the things he could have complained about, somehow it didn't surprise Song that it was the tea that upset Iroh._

_She swallowed with difficulty. It truly was awful tea._

"_Uncle, that's what _all_ tea is."_

_It also didn't surprise her that Zuko still couldn't distinguish between the former and the latter. Mind you, his tea was typically so bitter it could turn your face inside out._

"_How can a member of my own family say something so horrible?" Iroh hurled the tea out of one of the front windows. "We'll have to make some major changes around here."_

"_Hey!"_

_A girl appeared in the doorway of the teashop, a crooked smile on her face and an apron over her arm. Her dark hair was coiled in a bun at the back of her head and secured with a set of three well worn hairpins, each with a small wooden flower at each end. Two had seed pearls missing from their petals. Song noted her eyes as the light caught them; hazel, the left with the tiniest fleck of blue at the outer iris._

"_Watch it with the hot leaf juice there," she said, smiling now at Iroh and flicking tea leaves from one corner of her uniform._

"_My apologies," Iroh said, beaming. He bowed. "I am Mushi; this is my nephew, Lee and our traveling companion, Song."_

"_Nice to meet you all. I'm Pao's waitress, Aneko."_

_Song watched as Aneko took them in. She never hesitated over Zuko's scar, but her eyes flickered curiously when she say the faint sadness in Song's. This girl was perceptive._

"_You're new to Ba Sing Se, right?"_

_Iroh nodded gravely. "We are."_

_Those terribly perceptive eyes took them in for a second time as she went about pulling chairs down from tables and laying out teacups. The crooked smile came back._

"_You'll be fine," she reassured them. "Its good that you've got jobs now. And once you get settled, the city's not so bad."_

_Zuko spoke for the first time, his face and voice sullen. "Sure," he muttered, "Because everyone's so safe in Ba Sing Se."_

_Aneko paused, gazing at him, suddenly serious. "Only fools and children really believe that," she said carefully. "You don't look like a fool and none of us are children anymore." She exhaled sharply and went back to the teacups. "You'll want to put a lid on the attitude too; the Dai Li don't take too kindly to that kind of talk."_

_Song tilted her head, curiosity getting the better of her. "Who're the Dai Li…?"_

_And so, it began._

_

* * *

_

It was ending.

Jin's hood covered her face, shielding the world from her gimleted eyes as she stood guard in the hallway of Song's apartment building. In her hands the little jade fox turned over and over, over and over, while silently Jin's worries did the same in her mind.

It was ending.

_Dear spirits, please let me be doing the right thing…_

_

* * *

_

With quick, efficient movements, Aneko picked up an under blouse, folded it and laid it in the bag beside a pile of other clothes. Across the room, Song was going through her closet, pulling things out and throwing them on the bed to be packed. When she suddenly stilled, Aneko looked up and followed her gaze.

She was staring at a pair of new traveling boots. Aneko went to her, standing close and taking the other girl's hand. She was still holding Zuko's dagger. Song spoke.

"I'd forgotten I had them," she murmured. "I bought them our second day here. I thought – I thought maybe we wouldn't be staying long, that I should have a pair just in case." She turned to look at Aneko. "I suppose I'll need them now, won't I?"

Aneko nodded. "Brave girls wear boots," she said without thinking.

"What?"

"Oh." She shook her head. "It was just something my mom told me, before we moved to Ba Sing Se. I had to wear boots for the journey, when I'd never really owned a pair before. Mom told me we were going on an adventure and that…that brave girls had to wear boots to go on adventures."

Song smiled briefly, then held up the dagger in her open palm, looking down at it with shuttered eyes.

"Do you think Uri will be okay?"

Aneko closed the other girl's fingers over the dagger.

"I hope so."

* * *

Uri ran.

She ran as hard and as fast as she could. Her feet beat against the road in time to her heartbeat, in time to the blood pounding in her ears, in her wrists and throat, in time with the rage coursing through her.

When she could stand no more, when the angry tears began, she threw back her ragged head and screamed once to the cold stars overhead.

"IDIOT!"

Idiot for running, idiot for coming, idiot for staying. Idiot for loving them, for thinking him a brother. Idiot, idiot, idiot, oh Zuko you utter fool…how could he have done this. How could he have let this happen?

"_Zuko's our friend. We trusted him – and now he's decided he's just going to abandon us (and Iroh!) to follow this will-o-the-wisp, wild hog-monkey chance of capturing the Avatar. The Avatar for crying out loud!"_

She flew into her and Aneko's apartment, furiously swiping away her tears. Dee-Dee came to meet her, meowing plaintively. She spared him a quick pat and a handful of dried meat before whirling away into her bedroom, throwing clothes haphazardly into her old satchel.

"_He wants to go home, Uri, and he sees capturing the Avatar as the return ticket."_

"_That's it though! This is home now – I'm happy here, why can't he be?"_

Jin had said they weren't safe here anymore. Uri knew it was true, had helped to explain it to the other girls. Azula was vindictive, always had been, had been trained to be that way ever since she was small…and Iroh had said it himself; Song was important to Zuko, they all were, and if Azula thought she could get even a small reaction out of her brother by hurting his friends she wouldn't hesitate.

"_Because there's a crucial difference between you and Zuko; you ran away, but he was banished. Boiled down, you chose this…he didn't."_

Yes, he chose. Chose to help Azula murder the Avatar; murder Aang, who had been twelve, with grey eyes and a sheepish smile and the hope of the world on his shoulders. And yet stupidly, Uri thought of Zuko, thought of him pandering to his sister's destruction and all she wanted to do was protect him.

A flash of something crossed her eyes; a memory older than the one's that had touched her in her anger.

She remembered being twelve, being even smaller than she was now and terrified yet determined as she crept through the bamboo scaffolding of the amphitheatre. Above her, the crowd had roared with some emotion she couldn't identify. She had crawled until she'd seen a pair of boots she recognized. Her father's as he sat with that man, that Admiral who had come to see them. He had looked at her and nodded at her father, saying only, "She'll do."

And now, here they were, to watch the royal Agni Kai. The prince, up against someone…someone…no one had said who… All she had cared about was eavesdropping on her father's plans for her after the Academy.

More roaring and ominous silence.

She heard the sound of a boy's voice, though she couldn't make out his words. Then a man spoke and Uri peered, horrified, through the gaps in the seat covers.

Ozai looked down with cold eyes upon his kneeling son. "You will learn respect and suffering will be your teacher."

When the flames had burst to life, Uri had shut her eyes and covered her ears. She still heard him scream. Later, when she felt brave enough to open her eyes, Zuko had been a shivering creature upon the Agni Kai grounds, his uncle rushing to his side. Uri had looked away and into the face of Princess Azula.

All that could be seen…all that could be found on that girl's face was cruelty and joy.

Here, now, Uri stepped away from the satchel on her bed and backed slowly out of her room. She lifted her wrist and stared unblinkingly at the pendant of yellow jade that rested, Dragon Blossom side up, upon her pulse point.

She had a plan.

* * *

For the first time since her family and its orphans had settled here, Ba Sing Se felt quiet to Aneko. There were no night markets, few teashops still open, many streets darkened without their lanterns lit. She wondered why for a moment before something occurred to her.

It had all been done on purpose. The authorities coordinating with the Dai Li. _Keep them inside_, they must have said. _It's too dangerous to be out in the dark tonight, so don't light the lanterns, and don't allow any markets…keep them all inside…for their own safety._

It was only a very small movement, barely perceptible in the dark, but Aneko felt her lip curling in barely restrained disgust.

Turning her gaze away from the darkened city, she took in her companions as they were upon the station platform. Song stood a little way away with Shan, her forehead bowed to his chest, his arms holding her against the horrors tonight had brought. The already angular plains of the healer's face where made harsher by his solemn expression. Beside Aneko stood Jin; both girls were black-eyed in the near-lightless night, sisters shoulder to shoulder in their deep grey cloaks and stone-carved expressions.

Still, it was Aneko who first spotted Uri.

She came bounding up the station steps, only one bag bouncing upon her shoulder and no Dee-Dee in sight. If that alone hadn't been enough to set off a warning bell, Uri's face did it.

"Something's wrong," she whispered.

Jin's head snapped around, predator look back in place. Before she could ask, Uri was in front of them, Song and Shan following. Uri eyed the healer.

"Hi, what're you doing here?" she asked. Tact of a sledgehammer.

"Shan's helping. He's acting as an escort to get us out of the city. He knows people who can help us get away." Her eyes narrowed at the little firebender. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

Uri ducked her head taking a few shuddering breaths. She looked up again. "I'm not going with you."

Song made a sound of pain. There was a sharp inhalation that came from Jin. Aneko felt the blood drain from her face.

"…what?"

"I have to stay," Uri told them, determination gathering in her face. "Even though – even though he helped Azula – even though he helped her kill Aang…" Her breath hitched. "He's still – he's still someone I care about and I – I don't believe he did it without some sort of reason, however stupid or foolish or…" She choked and seemed unable to continue.

Without speaking, Aneko took both Uri's hands in her own. Uri kept going.

"Zuko's a boy. He's not as bright as us. He'll – he'll need to be protected, even if it's only from himself. That's why I'm staying." She shook her head, black bangs flying. "Don't argue with me on this, guys."

Aneko felt her throat close, thickening with tears. Her breath rattled and she gasped softly. This couldn't be happening. Her best friend…her boss…her brother…

But it was happening, it was happening right now, and it had to happen, because Uri was right; Zuko wasn't as bright as he should have been. He was a boy. He was damaged. He wanted things, things that clouded his judgement, would make him vulnerable. And even though it hurt…

She moved forward, wrapping her arms as tightly around the smaller girl as she could. She felt Uri hug her back. There was a soft blur of movement and then Song was there at Aneko's left side, her arms around both of them. Jin was next to Aneko's right. They bent forward over Uri, Jin and Song's forehead's touching, forming an arch of warmth.

They stayed like that for what felt like an eon and no time at all. Tears ran down every cheek. Every third breath was ragged. Though it remained unsaid, each knew that something – someone – was missing.

"Be safe," Song whispered.

"Be careful," Jin added.

"Be brave," Aneko finished.

As the train pulled in, Uri handed Aneko her bag. Aneko wordlessly took one of her three hairpins, the one with the red coral centre, from her hair. Uri's hair was still too short and ragged for pins, so Aneko tucked it through the collar of her tunic. It sat like a broach, its seed pearl petals winking in the starlight. It looked like it belonged there.

She leant forward, pressing a kiss to the little firebender's forehead.

"We'll find you," she breathed. "Promise."

And then, in a whirl of dark cloth and whispers, they departed.

* * *

It was late when she finally got back to the apartment.

Dazed, she moved through its rooms. Nothing had sunk in. Not really.

Silently, she began packing things, digging out the packing crates from the communal storage down the hall. She put away the rest of Aneko's things, labeling each crate with her parent's address. In one, she wrote a short letter of explanation, hid it in Aneko's jewelry box and buried it deep in a stack of winter clothing. They would be sent tomorrow, if she had time.

She packed her own as well, leaving out enough to pack into her satchel and to change into the next morning.

Upon the stripped mattress, Uri curled up with her puma and waited for sunrise.

* * *

In the early hours of the morning they moved through the city.

Shadows cast by the watered sunlight hid the litter, the curled shapes of the homeless and the beggars who crouched waiting in the alcoves and closed doorways. What little foot traffic there was parted for them, eyes darting away from the scared boy in a waiter's uniform and his silent Dai Li escort.

They had moved steadily down from the middle ring, and since then, Zuko had been a creature of great and terrible rage.

Song wasn't there. The apartment had been empty of human life, and Song had been gone along with a comparative scattering of her possessions. Her clothes…her treasure chest…his dagger.

He wondered if she'd found his note. He wondered how she would react when she found out. He wondered if she would hate him for what he'd done.

As he knocked hard on Uri and Aneko's door, he comforted himself with the rage, the thought that if anyone had taken her, harmed her, there would be hell to pay and he would be the one to extract payment. He waited for someone to answer, waiting minutes, then beat upon the door again, calling, "Uri! Aneko! Open up, guys!"

From inside he heard soft shuffling, almost inaudible footsteps. The door slide wide and there was Uri, wild-haired and rumpled in yesterday's clothes.

When she looked at him, he felt something curl up inside him and shake.

"Where's Song?" he asked.

She gazed back at him, and he saw her own anger moving like a ghost behind her eyes. "Gone," she said.

"Gone where, Uri?"

"Away, somewhere." She shrugged. "Somewhere safe. Away from Azula."

Zuko seethed. "Uri, Azula isn't a threat anymore, she –"

Uri gave him a disbelieving look. "Are you really that stupid, Zuko?"

His fists clenched at his sides. He breathed hot gouts of steam from both nostrils and grit his teeth.

"Just tell me where she is."

"I don't know. I didn't ask and they probably wouldn't have told me if I had. You shouldn't worry. Aneko's with her, and Jin and Shan. She'll be fine. Jin seemed to know what she was doing." Uri's amber eyes inspected his face. "She knew about us, you know? And Iroh. She didn't blame us for keeping secrets. She wanted to protect us girls – even me, if I'd let her."

Zuko felt his ire melt away, leaving incredulity in its wake. "…you could have gone with them?"

Uri nodded. He stared at her, perplexed.

"Why stay, then?"

She stared back at him, her expression inscrutable. "I have something to take care of," she said softly.

He looked away, mind and reason scattering as he wondered what to do. There was little point in going after Song if…a fist closed around his heart…if she was afraid of him. A little voice called from far away inside him, and said, yet everything you've done, you did to protect her.

_Never give up without a fight._

This time he had to.

He found Uri's eyes again. "Come back with me," he said earnestly, "to the Fire Nation. We can…we can finally go home."

"Zuko." She let out a rough sigh and dragged one small hand through her short hair. "Its not…it's not my home anymore. Besides, if I do go back my father with just trap me again and force me through some farce of a marriage…"

Zuko shook his head. "No, no he won't. I won't let him. You can stay at the palace and he won't be able to get you and…and I won't allow him to marry you off." He gripped her shoulders, smiling for the first time in twenty-four hours. "I can do all that now, Uri. I – I have it back. My honour as a prince is restored."

She stared at him with flat eyes before nodding slowly.

"Okay," she said softly. "Just let me get my things."

* * *

**AN:** Thus endth _Brave Girls Wear Boots_. I've had some mixed feedback for this one, and honestly I'm not sure if I'm willing to put time and effort into a sequel for it (what is it with me and Avatar fanfiction?). Its all starting to feel like a bad rehash. If you guys still wanna see what happens I'll try and put together some oneshots later in the year. Thanks for reading, leave a review on your way, if you feel thus inclined.


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